Angel Vergara Cruces

Angel is a PhD student in the Webster lab. His work focuses on understanding transcription in the chloroplast.

Chloroplasts are specialized organelles in plants and green algae where photosynthesis takes place. Chloroplasts originated from photosynthetic bacteria that were incorporated by an eukaryotic host. Because of this, chloroplasts still retain some genes present in their bacterial ancestor, which crucially include central components of photosynthesis. These genes are expressed by protein complexes that resemble those found in bacteria, but in chloroplasts, these protein complexes have acquired new components with potentially novel functions.

As part of the Webster lab, Angel works on isolating protein complexes from plant chloroplasts to characterise them biochemically and structurally. This research aims at deepening our understanding of how the expression of photosynthetic genes is regulated at the molecular level.