Klaudia and Julie after receiving their awards.

Klaudia with her poster. Klaudia’s poster, “Stress-Proofing Plants: The Role of ZAT11 & ZAT18 in Cell Wall Defense”, told the story of two transcription factors, ZAT11 and ZAT18, as central players in the cell wall integrity (CWI) pathway. Her work revealed that these transcription factors do not act in isolation: they regulate each other’s expression and influence the activity of the CWI receptor THESEUS1, a key node in translating wall damage into cellular responses. By combining RNA-seq data, mutant analysis, and stress assays, she showed how ZAT11 and ZAT18 respond differently to stresses such as salt and cellulose inhibition, offering new insight into how plants fine-tune their defences while maintaining growth.

🎉 Proud moment for our lab!
PhD student Klaudia Ordyniak won the Best Poster Award at the #SPPSPhD2025 conference for her work on transcription factors ZAT11 & ZAT18 in cell wall integrity 🌿👏
Also cheers to another UPSC colleague, Julie Ducla, for winning Best Presentation! bit.ly/46xCUZZ