Arabidopsis Around the World

Hannah Davis, a senior studying Plant Biology and Biochemistry spent her summer continuing research in the Alonso-Stepanova Lab and attending the International Conference of Arabidopsis Research.

Research at NC State

Davis was one of 15 recipients of the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Award from the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) this year. This award funds undergraduate research, providing a stipend for student researchers to work full time in the laboratory, as well as the opportunity to travel and present their work at the annual Plant Biology conference. 

Davis first met her mentor, Professor Anna Stepanova, during her first-year at NC State through an assignment to interview a professor in plant biology. During the interview she learned how to enter research as an undergraduate and was invited to volunteer in the lab. Davis has been a member of the Alonso-Stepanova Lab working under Professor Stepanova since 2023. One of the biggest portions of her work has been optimizing the procedures for her experiments and clearly documenting procedures for future lab members interested in continuing the work.

“I think I really fell into place quickly. I definitely knew it was what I wanted to be doing, and… I really think I have been running with the opportunities I’ve had in this lab. I feel very lucky that I reached out to Dr. Stepanova in the first place and then landed myself here.”

Davis’ project is within the field of synthetic biology and focuses on making strong promoters to better understand how they impact gene expression. Davis’ work builds off of a project done by Anna Yaschenko, a graduate student in the Alonso-Stepanova Lab. This work helps labs understand optimal promoter architecture to build promoters for a wide array of uses including logic gates, fundamental building blocks of digital circuits. Additionally, the project expands the lab’s toolbox for synthetic biology of not only the promoters but also the CRISPR activation system. Davis continued collecting data over the course of the summer and developed the next steps for her research.

Davis designs and builds her promoters, then measures how well they activate expression of a gene. Although still in the initial stages, Davis is excited to have her own data to work with and continue to examine patterns in gene expression and promoter strength.

Taking her Work Abroad

Davis also received a travel award from the North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee to attend the International Conference of Arabidopsis Research (ICAR) in Ghent, Belgium. This was not only her first trip abroad, but also her first trip to a large scientific conference. She was encouraged to apply by Professor Stepanova.

The travel award came with a cohort experience designed to connect early career scientists with mentoring and networking opportunities with experts from around the world. The cohort built community and helped Davis build connections in a new place. “Knowing that I had a group of people that this was new for them as well made it a lot easier,” explained Davis. She was also able to learn about  the wide breadth of Arabidopsis research, of particular interest as she explores her next steps after graduation and graduate training options.

Davis presented a poster of her research project at the conference and connected with other synthetic biologists. She enjoyed hearing what people in different places were doing, and how they were using similar CRISPR systems in different ways to investigate topics in gene expression regulation.Davis looks forward to continuing her research in the Alonso-Stepanova lab and presenting her results at the 2026 ASPB Plant Biology Conference in Ottawa, Canada next summer.