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Mar 17

Science Communication with Priya Sengupta, Part III

KEK on 3/17/2025 4:20 PM

Priyamedha Sengupta, Postdoctoral Researcher, Centre of Research on Agricultural Genomics (CRAG), Spain, and Junior Member IS-MPMI Board of Directors

Priya tells us about the next stage of her outreach journey.

I am Priyamedha Sengupta, postdoctoral researcher at CRAG, Spain, and junior member of the IS-MPMI Board of Directors. Coincidentally, I have been affiliated with institutions having the letter C in their names (University of Calcutta, India, M.S. degree in botany [2017]; University of Cologne, Germany, Ph.D. degree in natural sciences [2023]). My research primarily involves good and bad (but never ugly) microbes of Arabidopsis thaliana.

Science Is Wonderful!

I graduated with a Ph.D. degree from the University of Cologne in January 2023, and after a series of celebrations and farewell dinners, it was time to leave the city at the end of February. However, the beginning of my next step as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre of Research on Agricultural Genomics (CRAG), Spain, encountered some bureaucratic hiccups. Eventually, after a long struggle with the Spanish embassy in Düsseldorf (Germany) and Delhi (India), I received a visa toward the end of April 2023 to begin my postdoc position at CRAG. Additionally, I was excited to find that CRAG is quite active in outreach and regularly organizes workshops to acquaint young school children with plant sciences. However, most of those activities are conducted either in Catalan or Spanish, the two official languages of the region. Even though Duolingo taught me enough Spanish to obtain tortilla de patatas (Spanish omelettes) from the supermarket or to purchase a monthly train ticket in the suburbs of Barcelona, I wasn't equipped to handle the inquisitiveness of 8–10 year olds about yellow sticky traps in greenhouses. Nevertheless, a scope for outreach arrived again in the name of the Science is Wonderful fair.

The European Commission organizes Science is Wonderful, an annual fair held in Brussels, Belgium, showcasing research projects of Marie Curie Actions (MSCA) and MSCA-COFUND fellows to primary and secondary school students in an interactive format. As my current position is part of the MSCA COFUND AGenT (Agricultural Genomics Transversal) training program, I applied for this event together with Raquel Alvarez (former postdoctoral researcher at CRAG). From guiding primary school students as part of CRAG 's outreach program to motorbiking in the February cold to mentor students in Girona on Women in Science Day, Raquel has been quite engaged with science communication herself.

Muriel Arimon and Adrià Redondo, from the CRAG outreach department, supported our application, "SUMO Wrestling with Pathogens," giving insights on how to make the activity more suitable for school-age children. We had planned to demonstrate SUMOylation (a post-translational modification system in eukaryotes) as a game of passing the parcel, where the tiny SUMO protein (represented by a cushion) would be passed between groups of children to explain the cyclical event happening inside plants. Alongside this game, we had envisioned a science show to present at the festival based on the popular children's story The three little pigs, which goes something like this: each pig builds a house; one with straw, another with sticks, and the last one with bricks. The wolf easily destroys the houses made of straw and sticks but is unable to knock down the brick house.

But we are talking about plants! How do they build their brick houses when they can't even move? Plants cannot really escape, so they must face challenges head on and protect themselves against environmental threats (wolves). This would segue into "SUMO Wrestlers Are Here, Not to Fear," which would explain how tiny SUMO proteins can assist in plant defense and are the brick walls that plants build for themselves to keep out the wolves. Finally, the show would end with the moral of the story—that it is important to study plants in the context of climate change and food security. Sadly, our application for Science is Wonderful did not make the cut; although, it was a lot of fun brainstorming on the proposal with Raquel over vending machine café con leche. Later, I got to discussing with Muriel other possibilities in outreach, when she suggested something familiar—Pint of Science.

One More Pint to Go

I was happy to participate again in Pint of Science, in a different city (or rather country). The 2024 event in Barcelona took place from May 13 to 15 across eight different locations in the city, with nearly 50 participants. Although, most talks were either in Catalan or Spanish, it was great to be given the chance to present in English about the importance of SUMO proteins in plant health. I appreciate the feedback from CRAG's Adrià Redondo and Javier Domingo on my talk.

On May 13, I presented at the BlackLab pub in the lively Eixample neighborhood of Barcelona, where I enjoyed speaking about my life and science, such as my little rebellion of choosing biology as a major despite having geologist parents, why organic farming cannot be the only sustainable solution, and how pathogenic microbes manipulate the SUMOylation system in plants to cause disease. Lovely interactions postpresentation, coupled with the ambience of BlackLab, made for a great evening.

Some of the talks at the Pint of Science festival took place at community centers as well, where people usually gather for an evening of beer and scrabble. It was inspiring to see how Raquel Alvarez engaged the Noubarris community of Barcelona on "what a scientist does in a lab" and mutant phenotypes of Arabidopsis thaliana. Now that Raquel has chosen science communication as a profession, she is sure to disseminate the essence of plant science to people from all walks of life.

The Night Is Still Scientific

European Researchers' Night is a time to present scientists in all their glitz and glamor or as their normal selves to the public every year on the last Friday of September. I made my debut on Researchers' Night on September 27, 2024, as part of the activity Conversation with Researchers at the CosmoCaixa Museum of Science in Barcelona. I had previously visited CosmoCaixa during the Dinosaurs of Patagonia exposition and spent the whole afternoon gawking at the giant Sauropod skeletal frame, reading descriptions of Gondwanaland emerging from the breaking up of Pangea, and glancing at fossil impressions of Archaeopteris (feeling relieved that I no longer need to sketch them in laboratory notebooks, as I did during the Palaeobotany course of my master's degree). Coming back to Researchers' Night, I had spoken with one of the coordinators, Rosa, before the event on the type of activity involved and how to prepare for it. Rosa had explained that it would be an informal discussion with the audience on our research and, ideally, conveying the information that scientists are regular people.

Participating in Conservation with Researchers was truly an enriching experience. I explained how a plethora of microbes exist in the environment, influencing the lives of plants and humans, either directly or indirectly, by causing diseases of important crops and halting the farm to fork transition (drawing inspiration from the Soapbox Science event of 2021). The best part of the activity was engaging with the audience on topics like the impact of climate change on pathogen survival, microbial biopesticides, and artificial intelligence in plant biology research. I was particularly amazed by the question from fellow presenter Gurjot Singh Bhatia, associated with the MSCA-ITN project 5GSMARTFACT. During my pitch, I had mentioned that as part of my master's thesis I worked on biological control of green mold disease in oranges caused by the fungus Penicillium digitatum. Gurjot's question was how Penicillium, on one hand, can produce a beneficial compound like penicillin, one of the most widely used antibiotics and, on the other hand, be detrimental to plants. Analyzing the lifestyle of microorganisms is an important research topic in the plant-microbe interactions field. However, receiving this question from a nonbiologist did leave me stumped (in a good way)!

Breaking the Walls Within

Although my venture into outreach was rather accidental, being involved in the whole process has made me realize its importance in present times. Given the misinformation about sustainable crop improvement strategies, it is essential that scientists step forward and communicate with the general population directly. In this regard, I laud the efforts of CRAG in launching "The Potential of Gene Editing in Plants," a website with compact and easily accessible information on advances in plant biotechnology over the years.

Outreach can help bridge the gap between science and society. However, before bridging the gap, there are walls inside of the academic environment that need to be broken down. Often, citizen science communications are not well accepted by the scientific community. In addition, scientists performing outreach can be seen as reluctant to pursue serious research and even trivialized as not being competent enough to carry out complicated hypotheses in the laboratory.

During outreach, the complexities of research topics need to be simplified, so everyone can understand the main motivation and significance of a study. However, simplification is not an easy task and requires a much broader understanding of one's own field of work. For example, during my Ph.D. program, when I presented at the Deutsche Phytomedizinische Gesselschaft meeting (2021) I was asked how a basidiomycete yeast could antagonize an oomycete through a hydrolase enzyme? During the international conference of miCROPe Vienna (2022), I interacted with scientists from both academia and industry, and one of the commonly asked questions was if the hydrolase enzyme could be developed as a biological control agent against agriculturally important crops. In contrast, at outreach events I have come across simple yet insightful questions like, "How many microbes are present in one leaf?"

Fortunately, the importance of science communication is gradually being recognized in academia. Marie-Curie Actions, a major funding body in Europe, positively evaluates outreach activities conducted by the applicants and even requires MSCA awardees to perform citizen science communication during their fellowship. Another instance would be eLife Digests, which provides a simple and crisp explanation of published articles. In case you wish to know more about the yeast, oomycete, and hydrolase enzyme I mentioned in earlier, take a look at this eLife Digests link.

Growing up with scientist parents I have seen them teach with a passion similar to that for their research efforts. I believe outreach serves the same purpose as teaching, which is dissemination of knowledge. While having teaching duties is common for researchers, doing outreach is not yet as prevalent. Science communication does exist as an independent profession, but scientists should be able to perform outreach without giving up research, because outreach is not a mere task of dumbing down science for the common folks, but a wonderful way to include everyone in your academic pursuits.

For decades, scientists have been portrayed as villains in movies or seen as the epitome of boring, like the character of Ross Geller in Friends. Outreach provides an excellent opportunity to change the perception of science and to promote the reality that a society cannot progress without science and innovation.

Acknowledgments

I thank all my family, friends, and colleagues who have taken the time to attend events and cheer me on—whether it was the Falling Walls YouTube livestream, the marketplace of Rudolfplatz, or pubs of Cologne and Barcelona. My supervisors past (Prof. Gunther Doehlemann) and present (Dr. Maria Lois) for being supportive of my outreach activities. My mentor, Dr. Núria Sánchez Coll, for the important suggestion of how outreach can make you a well-balanced scientist and being super appreciative of this miniseries. Finally, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to IS-MPMI, especially Interactions Editor-in-Chief Prof. Anjali Iyer-Pascuzzi, for the opportunity and encouragement to write about my 5-year journey in science communication.

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Dec 20

Science Communication with Priya Sengupta, Part II

KEK on 12/20/2024 2:46 PM

Priyamedha Sengupta, Postdoctoral Researcher, Centre of Research on Agricultural Genomics (CRAG), Spain, and Junior Member IS-MPMI Board of Directors

Happy Birthday, Liebe Maus!

After Falling Walls, the opportunity for outreach arrived again in 2021, when we slowly and cautiously moved back to normalcy after the COVID pandemic. Around the first week of February, doctoral researcher Pia Saake and I received an email from Cordula Joergens from the CEPLAS office. CEPLAS, or Cluster of Excellence in Plant Sciences, binds together four different institutions (UoC, HHU, MPIPZ, and FZJ) and is a symbol of harmony between Cologne and Düsseldorf, Germany, amid all the beer, football, and carnival rivalry.

Cordula mentioned that a celebratory event was taking place all over Germany to congratulate the WDR Maus on its 50th anniversary and asked whether we wanted to participate as CEPLAS representatives. Later, I spoke with Petra Bracht (also from CEPLAS), who explained to me about "Die sending mit der Maus," an educational animated program in which an orange mouse, purple elephant, and yellow duck teach young children about science, culture, and more. I jumped at the offer, because how often do you get to congratulate a cartoon mouse?

In the video, Pia spoke of how watching the show as a child inspired her to become a scientist, while I explained how at CEPLAS we generate plants for sustainable agriculture under changing environmental conditions. Although we had to maintain strict protocols for social distancing and wearing masks, I enjoyed the whole video-shooting process, particularly saying “genüngend Nahrungsmittel" (i.e., “enough food") as part of the pitch drafted by Petra. Please follow the link to catch glimpses of the day. A shoutout to both Cordula and Petra, not only for the opportunity, but for believing that I could successfully deliver a pitch in German! Post WDR Maus, my outreach associations with CEPLAS grew stronger.

Thinking Outside the (Soap)box

On the last Friday of every month, all CEPLAS members gather for an afternoon of scientific seminars in either Cologne or Düsseldorf (occasionally Jülich, Germany). During one such CEPLAS Friday meeting (moved to an online format due to the COVID pandemic), we were informed about the upcoming Soapbox Science event. Scientists are accustomed to giving seminars via slide shows to a seated audience in a lecture hall. Soapbox Science does away with everything I mentioned in the previous sentence. Donning white lab coats, speakers stand over wooden Soapboxes in a crowded marketplace ushering in regular passersby with the phrase, "Would you like to hear some science?" More importantly, the purpose of Soapbox Science is to increase the visibility of women and nonbinary scientists.

Eventually, I applied to the Soapbox Science Rhineland 2021 event and was selected few months later for the pitch "Frontline Workers: How Microbes Protect Plants." Before the event, there was an online meet up between the Soapbox speakers and the organizers. The organizing committee explained about the structure of the program, which has some semblance to poster presentations at academic conferences. Although, each speaker would have 1 hour on the soapbox, the pitches should be a short and crisp 10–15 minutes to allow for more audience interaction. To ensure a constant influx of people, each speaker has a volunteer assigned to them. It was fun to become familiar with other Soapbox participants, which included two other CEPLAS members—Alisandra Denton and Adélaïde Raguin. Another familiar face in the speaker's list was that of Harshita Kaul from CECAD, Cologne, who made an amazing performance at Science Slam 2020 (just before the COVID lockdown) about the importance of brown fat in mice and ending with a social message about body shaming. During the online meeting, we gave each other feedback on our pitches and brainstormed ideas to engage visitors. Finally, the session ended on a high note, when the organizers said that a dinner would be organized after the event at L'osteria (Cologne). Having been double vaccinated against COVID, I looked forward to Soapbox Science.

My pitch on August 21, 2021, in Rudolfplatz, one of the busy market areas in Cologne, started off with my showing pictures of moldy strawberries and building up the concept that "plants can get sick too." To keep audiences engaged, I organized a tic-tac-toe match between two groups of people—the plants versus the pathogens. The pathogens had an advantage to start the game, because in nature they greatly outnumber the plants. If the plants won, no disease would take place (Hurrah!). The resistance (R) genes of the plant recognized the pathogen effectors or sensed a possible invasion and triggered a cell death response to restrict the pathogen. If the pathogens won, then they evolved their effector repertoire to evade being identified by the host and could cause disease. Finally, if a draw took place, it meant that the plant had evolved to modify its receptors to catch the pathogen in the act and was ready for battle. The inspiration behind the plant-pathogen tic tac toe was an article from the group of Prof. Sophien Kamoun, describing plants and microbes as engaged in an evolutionary game of tic-tac-toe. Thank you Prof. Kamoun for helping me to get Saturday shoppers with ice-cream cones interested about plant immunity and pathogenic virulence. I ended the pitch with a handmade placard (using my crude arts and crafts skills) to depict how beneficial microbes can play a role in "farm to fork" transition by helping the plant to combat diseases.

From holding up placards to drawing in audiences at my Soapbox corner, CEPLAS doctoral researcher Mary Ngigi very enthusiastically assisted in my pitch as a volunteer. Petra Bracht and Claudia Balan from CEPLAS were an amazing support team from the get-go. They arranged to record introductory videos of Alisandra, Adélaïde, and myself at the botanical garden of Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. In the video, we explained our respective motivations for participating in Soapbox Science. CEPLAS also arranged for the three of us to provide a joint statement on the importance of the visibility of women in STEM. Please read on to find out more about it, as well as a summary of Soapbox Science 2021.

Standing on the Soapbox was quite an experience, and I ended up spending over an hour speaking to a multitude of people—from colleagues and friends to absolute strangers carrying grocery bags. After the event, I returned to my regular life focusing on lab work, conferences, and meetings with my academic advisors. Moreover, as I was in the end of the third year of my Ph.D. program, I planned to concentrate completely on the academic aspect and not so much on the outreach. Nevertheless, my Sci-Comm journey was far from over.

A Pint to Remember

Our lab manager (now group leader) Johana Misas-Villamil recommended Pint of Science in one of our weekly lab meetings. Essentially, the Pint of Science festival takes place over three days in May across different countries and gives a stage to scientists to deliver talks in bars and pubs. Special thanks to Anna Euteneur (also one of the organizers of Soapbox Science) and Jonas Goergens for helping to modify my lecture for a relaxed evening of science. My talk on May 10, 2022, at Stapel Bar (Cologne) consisted of how plants and microbes have been associated for millions of years, and it is only recently that we have begun to tap into the potential of microbial communities in plant health and protection. I will never forget the jubilant clapping from the crowd when I said, "Having lived in Germany for 4 years, mein Deutsch ist gar nicht so schlecht" (i.e., "is not too bad"). Finally, I was amazed at the questions that continued after my talk at 10 p.m. in the evening, which only goes to show that plant-microbe interactions ist gar nich so schlecht.

One of the other highlights of that evening was Enric Bertran's talk, which introduced the concept of plant blindness—that is, how oblivious we can get about the mere existence of plants. Enric's telenovela inspired presentation about flower development generated a lot of laughs, and I believe the pitch was a masterclass in how to convey a complicated topic with ease. My colleagues Philipp Katzy and Laura Merx also were part of the Pint of Science 2022 event; please follow the link to find out more about their contributions, thanks to none other than CEPLAS.

The IS-MPMI Connect

Shortly after Pint of Science, I participated in the IS-MPMI Early Career Showcase (ECR) in June 2022. Although it was an online academic conference, what set it apart was that the speakers were largely graduate students and postdocs. We had a training session before the main event that included guidelines for how to make our talks accessible to everyone (e.g., making color-blind–friendly figures). I also remember the moderators asking us to send an audio clip of our names to introduce us with the correct pronunciation at the conference (a small yet important gesture!). Finally, the two-day virtual event took place with participants from all over the world. I was happy to present my Ph.D. research to such a wide audience (nearly 100) in the IS-MPMI community and to engage in the Q and A session. A cherry on top for the showcase was the discussion session on fellowship opportunities in academia conducted by Patricia Baldrich after the speaker presentations. One month after the ECR showcase, I joined the IS-MPMI Board of Directors as a junior member, which happens to be a significant point in my career. I believe being involved in outreach encouraged me to explore opportunities beyond research and become a voice for early career scientists.

CEPLAS Planter's Punch

My final outreach activity as a Ph.D. student at the University of Cologne was through the CEPLAS Planter's Punch. Every month, one CEPLAS member explains their research in the form of articles, videos, or podcasts for dissemination to the public. There have been some amazing contributions over the years from several graduate students and postdocs.

Valuable input from Petra Bracht and Céline Hönl helped me assemble my own CEPLAS Planter's Punch, "The Social Network: How Microbes Protect Plants." A few months after the publication, I went over to the CEPLAS office to collect a customized coffee mug as a present for the Planter's Punch. As I talked with Petra and Cordula, I mentioned that I was offered a postdoctoral position in Barcelona and would be joining in March 2023. To which Petra remarked, "So, you would be leaving CEPLAS then?" I had been preparing myself for the upcoming thesis defense and not yet for my departure from Cologne—a city which has given me so much academically and beyond. Therefore, with a slight tug in my heart, I replied "Yes" to Petra and bid adieu to CEPLAS, but not to outreach.