Pia Saake

Pia completed her PhD in Biology within the Cluster of Excellence in Plant Sciences (CEPLAS) in Cologne, Germany, where her research focused on beneficial plant–fungal interactions. Here, she investigated how fungal cell wall and plasma membrane components modulate host immune responses during endophytic colonization.

Pia is currently a postdoctoral researcher in Christine Faulkner’s group. Building on her doctoral work, which examined immune responses at the whole-organ level, she now takes a closer look at how immune signals are transmitted between individual cells. Specifically, Pia explores which apoplastic signals mediate rapid cell-to-cell communication during plant stress responses and how these signals are transmitted.