After completing her Master’s thesis at the August Cieszkowski Agricultural University in Poznan, Poland, Joanna pursued a PhD position in the Plant Cell Biology group led by Professor Karin Krupinska and relocated to Kiel, Germany. Her PhD studies focused on characterizing DNA-protein complexes present in chloroplasts. She obtained her PhD degree in 2011.

In 2012, Joanna relocated to sunny Perth, Western Australia to start postdoctoral work at The University of Western Australia in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology under the guidance of Professor Ian Small. Since 2014, her research has shifted its focus to plant mitochondria, specifically to a group of proteins known as Restorer of Fertility (Rf) proteins. Rf proteins play a crucial role in the development of hybrid cultivars in cereals, making them of significant agronomic importance.

In 2022, Joanna was awarded the ARC Future Fellowship and accepted an offer for a Senior Lecturer and Group Leader Position in the Division of Plant Sciences at the Research School of Biology at the Australian National University. She relocated to Canberra in October 2023. Her research group employs molecular biology and computational methods to investigate the interactions between mitochondrial and nuclear genomes in plants, with the goal of applying this knowledge to breed high-yielding and stress-resistant hybrid crops. Of particular interest to her is the family of mitochondrial transcription termination factors known as mTERFs and their role in fertility restoration in cereals, including wheat, rye, barley, and sorghum.

Joanna collaborates with Groupe Limagrain, the world's fourth-largest seed-producing company, on the identification and characterization of restorer genes in wheat. Additionally, through collaboration with Professor Nils Stein from The Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) in Gatersleben, Germany, she has contributed to the characterization and annotation of the PPR/RFL family in the reference genome of bread wheat and became a member of the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium. Joanna also collaborates with Professor David Jordan and Dr Emma Mace from the University of Queensland, as well as Professor Adam Lukaszewski from the University of California, Riverside (to name a few).

Dr rer nat

The aim of Joanna’s research is the genomic and molecular characterisation of Restorer-of-Fertility-like (RFL) genes in plants and their application to hybrid breeding in crops. Joanna’s genome-wide analyses of the RFL clade in cereals (rice, barley, wheat, and rye) have revealed the evolutionary plasticity of RFL genes in plants and proposed mechanisms that drive the creation of new gene variants capable of suppressing the expression of novel mitochondrial genes that cause cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS).

Hybrid varieties are favoured for their attractive agronomic traits and higher and more stable yields. However, for many staple crops like wheat or barley, hybrid seed production on a commercial scale remains difficult. The major limiting factor is the absence of an efficient way to control self-pollination. Most promising approach uses CMS induced by a gene encoded in the mitochondrial genome, and nuclear RFL genes able to overcome this sterility in the hybrids. RFL proteins block expression of CMS genes by inducing cleavage of their transcripts.

In addition to this agricultural application, the suppression of CMS by nuclear restorer genes represents an intriguing example of mitochondrial-nuclear genome interactions that are integral to the process of speciation by natural selection and are therefore of great interest to a broader research community.