Darius Kosmützky (PhD student)

Background

• PhD (Biochemistry) in the Howe lab (since October 2020)
• Master of Philosophy in Biological Sciences (Biochemistry) at the University of Cambridge (Howe group) (2019-2020)
• Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry at Bielefeld University (Germany, 2015-2018)

Research

My project revolves around the enigmatic protein cytochrome c_6A, which is found in every green plant and algae and has high homology to the electron transport protein cytochrome c₆ of the photosynthetic electron transfer chain, but so far we just know that c_6A cannot do what c₆ does. I’m trying to find an answer to the questions why c_6A exists and what it does by working with the unicellular eukaryotic alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. This basic research should give us more insight into how the photosynthetic processes of plants and algae and the adaptation of those to various stresses work.

Funding

Gates Cambridge Trust with support of the Benn W Levy Trust.

Contact details

e-mail: dgk28@cam.ac.uk

lab phone: +44 (0)1223 333 684

twitter: @kos_darius

Publications

• https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6qD8g7kAAAAJ&hl=de&oi=ao

• For this paper we were looking at the evolutionary history of the cytochrome c6 family of photosynthetic electron transfer proteins. Here’s a summarising twitter thread.
  The evolution of the cytochrome c₆ family of photosynthetic electron transfer proteins, Barnaby Slater, Darius Kosmützky, R. Ellen R. Nisbet, Christopher J. Howe, https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evab146