(2007-2010)

I was born in a really nice place called “The White City” and the reason for this particular name is simple; every house there is painted white. The name of my hometown is Merida and is located in the southeast of Mexico very close to the Caribbean Sea. Nowadays, I am sure it is even more famous because it is very close to Chichen Itza, one of the New Seven Wonders. The weather in Merida can be really hot, so inhabitants have found several ways to keep themselves cool. As you can imagine, here in Texas I do not miss the weather in Merida at all. I moved here in February, 2007 and currently I am a postdoc in the Devarenne Lab.

My main interest is plant signal transduction in which I have been interested since my graduate school years. I love to know the way plant cells communicate with their environment and how they respond to different conditions. Our model of study is tomato and the tomato bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae. The principal approach I am using is transient expression of recombinant proteins tagged with green fluorescent protein and its derivatives yellow fluorescent protein and cyan fluorescent protein in tomato protoplasts. I find it interesting because it allows me to know where specific proteins are localized within the cell, how they could be interacting with other proteins, and how they are redistributed during Pseudomonas infection. In addition, the patterns that Mother Nature has been showing us are really beautiful, better than the ones created by famous painters. One of the proteins we are interested in knowing its subcellular distribution, regulation, and interacting targets is Adi3 which is a negative regulator of plant cell death and could be important in the plant immune system response during Pseudomonas infection.

In general it is what I like and what I do, wish you are enjoying your visit.

Julissa is currently (as of 12.27.2013) an Full Time Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León in Monterrey, México.