🎉 Congratulations to Ananya Kedige Rao who defended her PhD titled “Morphological and Physiological Changes of Stolen Algal Organelles in a Polar Planktonic Host” on the 10^th of December in Grenoble 🎉

Over the past three years, Ananya’s research has focused on a remarkable Antarctic dinoflagellate that hijacks parts of its microalgal prey. The dinoflagellate temporarily retains the algae’s photosynthetic chloroplasts, energy-producing mitochondria, and even its nucleus inside a large internal compartment. Using advanced imaging and physiological techniques, she investigated how these stolen organelles change and function over time, hoping to unravel how such temporary integrations might tell us more about early eukaryotic evolution.

Ananya brilliantly addressed her subject and received the congratulations of the jury for the very high quality of her work. She is now starting a two-year Post doctoral contract funded by ERC: SymbiOCEAN project within the Photosymbiosis team of the LPCV. Continuing her work on the dinoflagellate, she will further explore the molecular basis of its hijacking behavior and how its morpho-physiology adapts to environmental shifts, such as the extreme conditions of the polar night.

Don’t miss Ananya’s paper published this year in Current biology: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982225003926

We are grateful to the collaborators and jury members: Fabrice NOT from Station Biologique de Roscoff, Christel GENOUD from Université de Lausanne, Ross WALLER from Cambridge University Press & Assessment, Christelle BRETON from Cermav and Thomas LACOUR from Ifremer.

And we gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the European Research Council (ERC), funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe programme (SymbiOCEAN, 101088661).