Dr Lara Esch

Starch plays an important role in our everyday lives; it is a major dietary carbohydrate and is increasingly important as an industrial raw material.

The grains of major grass crops consist largely of starch. While the synthesis of starch polymers is conserved between species, grass species show distinct variations in seed starch content as well as granule morphology.

Lara is interested in understanding the relationship of plastid biogenesis and structure and starch granule initiation and morphology in a developmental context using advanced cell biological, molecular, genetic and biochemical methods.

She is hoping to aid the up-to-date research of the synthesis and turnover of starch in both model and crop plants.

Since graduating with a PhD from the RWTH Aachen University, where Lara worked on characterising Poaceae specific proteins involved in broad spectrum disease resistance in the Group of Ulrich Schaffrath, she is now a Postdoctoral Scientis in the Groups of Professor Alison Smith and Dr David Seung.