Please describe your research briefly.

I have been working in the legume field for a while. I work on different biological models and use different approaches. My research at the University of Aarhus in Jens Stougaard laboratory - one of the leading labs if not the leading lab in symbiosis field - is about studying plant genes involved in symbiosis. Lately I have studied genes involved in spontaneous nodule organogenesis independently of Rhizobia.

What was your first experiment as a child ?

The first experiment I remember was actually with legumes. I germinated some beans by leaving them overnight in water and then on wet cotton. I observed the germination, the cotyledons coming out, then the first leaf. Then I transferred the plant to a pot and took care of it…. It was exiting !!

Why did you choose to study biology?

Like any child I wanted to embrace a lot of jobs and I was interested in different things. For example, I wanted to be an astronaut. I also wanted to become a neuron surgeon like my uncle. But all this faded away with time and the only persistent thing was my interest in plant biology. I was fascinated by all the biology around plants, thanks to some good programs on TV about plant biology and thanks to my father who likes gardening a lot, and was fascinated by plants himself. I probably got the virus from him J. I decided naturally to become a plant biologist.

Why do you find plants so interesting?

Plants are fascinating for many reasons. Plants are capable of feeding themselves (photosynthesis). They developed an amazing machinery to adapt to all kinds of environmental stresses. It is their complexity which I found interesting. The more we find out about plants, the more fascinated I get and the more we realize that there still a lot to discover. This is exiting and it keeps surprising me!!

You are French with an Algerian background. What brought you to Denmark?

I attended a nitrogen fixation meeting in Lunteren in 1997 and there I met Jens Stougaard from University of Aarhus. I heard his talk about the first cloned plant gene involved in nodulation. I met him again in 1999 in Amsterdam at another meeting and I thought this was one of the places (talking about Jens’s lab) where I would like to go after my PhD to have a different experience and to learn more about nodulation and symbiosis. While I was writing my Ph.D. thesis I attended a NATO meeting in Roscoff and there I met a post doc working in Jens’s lab. She told me that there was an open position that could be interesting to look at. Back home in Toulouse I looked at the description of the position, and I found it exciting. I contacted Jens who invited me to visit the lab and give a seminar and I went there. It was summer - one of these Danish summers, really rainy. I visited the lab and the greenhouse, talked to people and gave a seminar about my PhD work. Things worked out and I decided to come to Aarhus and leave my sunny Toulouse. My contract was for three years in the beginning, but while I was working on my first research project, new ideas and new funding came up and I decided to stay.

Can you describe the most exiting moment during you research carrier?

Looking for a certain mutant plant can be a risky business. There are no guarantees that a particular mutation will ever happen or that such a plant can be found. The idea of my research project was to find and characterize a mujtant Lotus japonicus plant, which had the ability to form nodules without Rhizobium infection. I looked at the roots of several thousand EMS. I didn’t know whether this was going to work and whether we were going to find these mutants at all. But as Jens used to say “the Goddess of fortune is by our side” and I was lucky to find six spontaneously nodulating mutants among half a million plants. It was a magic moment, when I found the first mutant – a moment that I will always remember. I was working with Dorthe, a technician from our lab - and I had already screened many lines without finding anything. I remember pulling a bench of plants form the clay granules where they grew and suddenly I got a goose skin and started screaming in French: “Yes I found them. Here it is. They are real!!” And Dorthe was wondering what was going on!! I had to calm down and explain what was happening.

You have been a very successful scientist. Do you ever spend time on anything but research?

I like very much what I am doing. Some people might think that I am working a lot. I don’t see it this way. I like to say that I am like a child in his sandy play ground. He never wants to come out and wants to keep playing. So it is fun already to be in the lab and carry on with my research. But I do other things, like gliding which a sport I discovered here in Denmark. It is another source of excitement to be flying up there over Silkeborg lake. I also go running with my colleagues in the lab. I have participated in few races on 5 km distance: The DHL stafet, Marselisborg løbet, Adecco kvindeløb and Alt for Damernes kvindeløb. .

You just published a paper in Nature and you have also published in other highly respected scientific journals. How does it feel to get this kind of recognition?

It is wonderful to get there. It was a whole journey and a fantastic experience. Having this kind of international recognition is just great. It feels so good to get this kind of reward. Achieving this and my entire experience at the University of Aarhus with science and people has opened a whole new perspectives for me …..

Do you have any good advice to young people who are going to choose a path in the educational system?

To do science, you must really like it. Trust me, only this way, you will enjoy doing your experiments and research!! So choose something you like and feel comfortable doing. Then you won’t see the time passing by and you will achieve a lot!!