Uta Paszkowski
Director of the Crop Science Centre
Research group: Cereal symbiosis
Biography
Uta Paszkowski is Professor of Plant Molecular Genetics at the Department of Plant Sciences of the University of Cambridge and leads the Cereal Symbiosis Group at the Crop Science Centre. She did her undergraduate studies at the University Cologne (Germany) gaining a Master (Diplom) degree in phytopathology at the Max-Planck Institute for Plant Breeding. Uta received her PhD in Biotechnology at the ETH-Zurich (Switzerland) and conducted two postdocs on molecular genetics of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis at the University Basel (Switzerland) and the Torrey Mesa Research Institute in San Diego (USA). She started her own research group at the University of Geneva (Switzerland), followed by an Assistant Professorship position at the University Lausanne (Switzerland) before moving to Cambridge University in October 2012 where she now is a full professor. Her research investigates molecular mechanisms underlying formation and functioning of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbioses in rice and maize with a particular focus on plant-fungal communication.
Publications
Publication
Elevated CO2 reinforces PT11-dependent symbiotic phosphate uptake to reprogram root nutrient acquisition in rice
Date: 1 September 2026
Contributors: Chai Hao Chiu, Mette Grønlund, Thomas Christian de Bang, Stephanie Watts-Williams, Fang Song, Krystyna Anna Kelly, Iver Jakobsen, Uta Paszkowski
Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publication
Spatiotemporal regulation of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis at cellular resolution
Date: 11 May 2026
Contributors: Tania Chancellor, Gabriel Ferreras Garrucho, Garo Z. Akmakjian, Héctor Montero, Sarah Bowden, Matthew S. Hope, Emma Wallington, Samik Bhattacharya, Christian Korfhage, Julia Bailey-Serres, Uta Paszkowski
Journal: The Plant Cell
Publication
Symbiotic phosphate transporter dynamics in rice expose functional plasticity of the arbuscules
Date: 22 April 2026
Contributors: Jennifer McGaley, Martina Orvošová, Ben Schneider, Chai Hao Chiu, Ronelle Roth, Sarah Bowden, Matthew S. Hope, Jayne L. Davis, Warda Khalif, Emma J. Wallington, Uta Paszkowski
Journal: Nature Communications
Publication
Integrating single-cell omic techniques to resolve the spatio-temporal complexity of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis
Date: 1 October 2025
Contributors: Gabriel Ferreras-Garrucho, Tania Chancellor, Uta Paszkowski
Journal: Journal of Experimental Botany
Publication
Defining the pre-symbiotic transcriptional landscape of rice roots
Date: 29 September 2025
Contributors: Gabriel Ferreras Garrucho, Uta Paszkowski, Chai Hao Chiu
Journal: bioRxiv