People

Anne studied Biology at University of Eastern Finland before joining Prof. Ykä Helariutta’s research group (University of Helsinki) as PhD student. There, she studied symplastic signaling regulated vascular development. Anne then joined to Prof. Dominique Bergmann’s research group at Stanford University (USA) as a postdoctoral fellow funded by EMBO LTF. Anne studied regulation of asymmetric stomatal lineage divisions and cell fate transitions. Her group studies mechanisms fine-tuning stomatal numbers during leaf development and aims to compare these mechanisms between angiosperms and gymnosperms.

Kaotar Elhazzime is particularly interested in the molecular regulatory networks governing the development and morphogenesis of biological structures. After pursuing her undergraduate studies on Pant Biology at the university of cadi Ayyad in Morocco, she interned with Genomics and Biotechnology of the Fruit Laboratory in France, conducting research on fruit-set regulation and development in Tomato plants. Currently, she is pursuing her doctoral research at Dr. Anne Vaten's research group, her work focuses on Arabidopsis early stomatal lineage progression, aiming to decipher how stomatal development is regulated upon environmental changes.

Sara attended the faculty of Biotechnology at the University of Milan (Milan, Italy). Then, she did her PhD in Environmental Sciences, in the laboratory of Prof. Simona Masiero (University of Milan). There, she deepened the role of NAC transcription factors in the regulation of leaf and fruit senescence in the model species Arabidopsis thaliana and Solanum lycopersicum. She is currently working as a postdoc in the laboratory of Dr. Anne Vaten (University of Helsinki, Finland), focusing on the regulation of stomatal lineage during leaf development in response to environmental changes. She is interested in developmental processes as adaptive answer to a constantly changing environment.

Miki studied Biology at Osaka University, Japan. There, she studied vascular development in Arabidopsis thaliana. She studies to characterize stomatal development in Norway spruce needle in terms of morphological and molecular level.

Aleksia has studied in University of Oulu and University of Helsinki. In her PhD thesis, she studied gene family evolution in plants. She has also worked with genomics and transcriptomics of woodland strawberry and trees. Her current aim is to study stomatal development in trees utilizing Norway spruce and silver birch as model species.

Miinastiina is providing technical assistance 

Master student, undergraduate researcher

Leila Ferrari is a master's student at the University of Helsinki and she is currently pursuing her master's degree in Dr. Anne Vaten's research group. Her project involves characterizing Norway spruce genes potentially linked to stomatal development. She utilizes inducible overexpression Arabidopsis thaliana lines and focuses on phenotypic analysis as well as transcription profiling. She is interested in providing a deeper understanding of transcription factors function in Gymnosperms, as well as the regulation of developmental processes that are still unexplored in this group.

Undergraduate researcher, master student

Martina is a Master’s student in the Integrative Plant Sciences programme at the University of Helsinki. Her thesis explores how different leaf tissues—the epidermis and mesophyll—contribute to stomatal development under different CO₂ levels in Arabidopsis thaliana. She uses tissue-specific genetic complementation, gene expression analysis, microscopy, and gas exchange measurements to investigate how CO₂-responsive signals are coordinated within the leaf. Her work aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of how plants adapt to changing atmospheric conditions.