Dr. Roosa Laitinen

Group: Molecular Mechanisms of Plant Adaptation
New Position: Associate Professor in Genomics-based Plant Science, University of Helsinki

Dr. Roosa Laitinen and her group used natural variants of Arabidopsis thaliana in order to understand the genetic and molecular basis of plant adaptation and evolution. The group’s research focused on two main questions. The first question was to understand what the different mechanisms of hybrid incompatibilities are and how they explain plant evolution. The second question was to find out what is the genetic basis of plasticity and its role in plant responses to changing environments. Addressing these questions necessitates a combination of approaches across different scales, from single genotypes to populations, from the molecular to complex end-phenotypes, and from the greenhouse to the natural habitat and the field.