Dr.Diana Mihaela Buzaș is a professor associated at The University of Tsukuba, Japan, and the laboratory she leads concentrates its research on the discovery of the universal laws of genetic and epigenetic heredity.
The laboratory uses excellent experimental systems for the study of heredity, the plants and especially a biological phenomenon very common in plants in nature, which has powerful marks with epigenetic characteristics: vernalization. In this process, the plants use the extended cold temperatures in winter in order to detect spring’s arrival, the most favorable moment for the transition to the reproduction phase. Vernalisation relies on the extended cellular memory, the same mechanism based on chromatin modifications used in a multitude of eukaryote organisms (for example, for organ formation all along the main axis of the embryo in Drosophila, maintenance of human stem cell identity etc.).
Dr. Diana Buzaș achieved the Horticultural Engineer diploma at the University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest at the Faculty of Horticulture, and the doctor’s degree in cellular biochemistry and biology at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Trained as a researcher in laboratories in three continents at elite institutions in Australia (CSIRO) and Japan (Nara Institute of Science and Technology), she then accepted the permanent position at one of the top 10 public universities in Japan, where she currently develops her laboratory.
