My Precarious Career in Photosynthesis: a Roller-coaster Journey into the Fascinating World of Chloroplast Ultrastructure, Composition, Function and Dysfunction

Overview

Journal Photosynth Res

Publisher Springer

Date 2021 Feb 5

PMID 33543372

Citations 1

Authors

Wah Soon Chow

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Despite my humble beginnings in rural China, I had the good fortune of advancing my career and joining an international community of photosynthesis researchers to work on the 'light reactions' that are a fundamental process in Nature. Along with supervisors, mentors, colleagues, students and lab assistants, I worked on ionic redistributions across the photosynthetic membrane in response to illumination, photophosphorylation, forces that regulate the stacking of photosynthetic membranes, the composition of components of the photosynthetic apparatus during acclimation to the light environment, and the failure of the photosynthetic machinery to acclimate to too much light or even to cope with moderate light due to inevitable photodamage. These fascinating underlying mechanisms were investigated in vitro and in vivo. My career path, with its ups and downs, was never secure, but the reward of knowing a little more of the secret of Nature offset the job uncertainty.

Citing Articles

Photoinhibition, photo-ecophysiology, and biophysics, a special issue in honor of Wah Soon Chow.

Szabo M, Zavafer A Photosynth Res. 2021; 149(1-2):1-3.

PMID: 34338942 DOI: 10.1007/s11120-021-00865-9.

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