Congratulations to Anna Dobritsa whose National Science Foundation grant entitled "The role of ELMOD family proteins and their genetic network in the development of specialized membrane domains on the Arabidopsis pollen surface" was recently funded for three years!

The Dobritsa lab uses pollen development as a model to understand the formation of complex extracellular structures. To perform their functions, cells often need to create regions on their surface which will differ from the surrounding areas in their protein and lipid composition. These regions are known as cellular domains. The funded work uses the formation of easily recognizable domains on the surface of pollen grains (the aperture domains) as a model to investigate molecular mechanisms cells use to direct molecules to specific positions and generate distinct domains of the plasma membrane.

Congratulations to Anna!