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Anna Dobritsa

Anna Dobritsa

Anna Dobritsa

Dept. of Molecular Genetics

dobritsa.1@osu.edu

(614) 688-2197

015 Rightmire Hall
1060 Carmack Road
Columbus, OH
43210

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Areas of Expertise

  • Pollen wall formation
  • Membrane biology
  • Cell biology

Anna Dobritsa obtained her M.S. in Molecular Biology from Moscow State University in Moscow, Russia and her Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University. She did her Post-doctoral training at the University of Chicago. Dr. Dobritsa's laboratory studies formation of complex extracellular structures using development of exine, the outer cell wall of pollen grains, as a model. Her group studies how exine development and patterning occur and how sporopollenin, the material from which exine is made, is synthesized. Eventually, they would like to understand how the forms of these structures determine their functions. To answer these questions, they use approaches of genetics, molecular biology, confocal and electron microscopy, and biochemistry. Dr. Dobritsa has accumulated a large collection of Arabidopsis exine mutants that help to identify and study molecular players and events involved in sporopollenin biosynthesis and exine formation. In the future, the data from Arabidopsis will be used as a foundation for evo-devo studies regarding the generation of the enormous variety of exine patterns observed in nature.