7 Sept 2026
Aida Shomali is conducting research as a visiting researcher in Prof. Dr. Dario Leister’s plant molecular biology group – with support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
During her stay, Aida will investigate how photosynthetic organisms cope with rapidly changing light conditions. Her research uses the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as a model to understand how different alternative electron transport pathways cooperate to protect the photosynthetic machinery from damage. A central element of the project is adaptive laboratory evolution.
Chlamydomonas strains impaired in individual photoprotective pathways will be exposed to increasingly challenging conditions to identify genetic changes that enable them to adapt and survive. The resulting candidate genes will subsequently be analysed and functionally validated, providing new insights into the mechanisms that make photosynthesis resilient to changing environmental conditions.
The project combines Aida’s expertise with approaches established in the Leister laboratory and strengthens international collaboration in photosynthesis research at LMU.