Graduate Student Conducts Innovative Plant Research
By Ligia Lundine

Rosario Barbieri is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Plant Cellular and Molecular Biology. She first came to Ohio State as a scholar and later joined the doctoral program. While working in the field of microbiology in her native city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Rosario realized that, although that field was interesting, it was not what she really wanted to do. After searching for several plant biology programs worldwide, Rosario contacted her current advisor who was researching plant development in relation to responses to light. The possibility of doing this type of research motivated Rosario to come to OSU.

Since then, Rosario has been exploring how plants prepare to “see” light when they germinate. To illustrate this, she said we should imagine a little seedling trying to go through the ground to reach the surface to “see” the sun for the first time. If the plant is not prepared to do that, the first time it “sees” the sun it will go blind. But if the plant is prepared, it will be able to react to the sun’s light and do something useful. Rosario and her colleagues are studying a particular membrane that appears in the plastids¹ of the plant, and how this membrane accumulates pigments that capture the light when the plant reaches the surface.

When asked why it is important to understand how plants work, Rosario said: “I have always been fascinated with the fact that plants are the main producers of human and animal nutrition and oxygen. It is very important for us to understand how plants work in order to make improvements, such as making crops better and more accessible to everyone.”

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¹Plastids: Any of several pigmented cytoplasmic organelles found in plant cells and other organisms, having various physiological functions, such as the synthesis and storage of food. Source: www.dictionary.com 2005.