Lauren Venugoban
Lauren received her Bachelor of Science (Honours) from Australian National University in 2013. Her research was on C4 plants such as maize and sugarcane which utilise specialised leaf anatomy and biochemical pathway(s) to concentrate CO2 around the carbon fixing enzyme Rubisco, which in turn enables efficient rates of photosynthesis. She works on the investigation of genes which may be critical to establishing the C4 photosynthetic pathways and anatomy in non-C4 crops by modifying expression of candidate genes in the model C4 species Setaria viridis. Her field of expertise is working with leaf gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence instruments to monitor plant physiology/photosynthetic performance and plant culturing and molecular biology techniques to modify genes in plants.
She worked in Program 1, Improving leaf CO2 capture efficiency in the von Caemmerer lab at the Australian National University, and Program 3, Exploiting photosynthetic variation. She was under the supervision of Dr Furbank and Professor von Caemmerer (ANU), Dr Tony Condon and Dr Gonzalo Estavillo (CSIRO).
Lauren received the Chancellor’s letter of Commendation (Australian National University) in 2012 and 2013.
Lauren was part of the Centre from 2015 to 2017