Open Research Europe presents an interview with Prof. Katalin Solymosi, Assistant Professor at the Department of Plant Anatomy, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE). She is the Gateway Advisor of the Cell, Molecular and Structural Biology Community Gateway on Open Research Europe.

This Community Gateway spans the fields of cell and molecular biology including cell structure, function, and behavior, as well as cellular interactions at the molecular level, with special focus on genes and proteins.

Read on to find out more about Prof. Katalin Solymosi’s work, her challenges, and why she thinks that open science is important for the fields of Cell and Molecular Biology.

Please describe your specific area of research and how it relates to the Cell, Molecular and Structural Biology Community Gateway.

I am a biologist interested in plant cell biology, more closely in plastid evolution, as well as in the relationship between plastid structure, metabolism, and function, in the cellular, molecular, and environmental regulation of plastid differentiation. My work also frames this in the context of climate change and various environmental factors affecting plastids, thus influencing plant and agricultural productivity (e.g. salt and drought stress). Another research field of interest of mine is studying medicinally important compounds produced by plants and natural food colorings such as chlorophylls and carotenoids, and their biosynthesis pathways.

What are the biggest challenges of being a researcher in your field?

Personally, the biggest challenge is to struggle with work-life balance – but this is not unique to my field and affects almost everyone, especially parents in science. I have spent six years on maternity leave with my two children. Relaunching my academic career as a mother-of-two, plus being a university lecturer with 10-12 hours teaching per week, in parallel with building my own lab from nothing and managing it in a new research area, was and still is, a great challenge. Without academic mentors, there is a constant struggle for resources (in terms of infrastructure, grants and human resources). In experimental plant biology, innovative science nowadays needs large, powerful, well-financed research groups and collaborations with diverse methodological and modern infrastructural background. For early- to mid-career researchers in experimental research fields the biggest challenge is to build and then sustain such a group.

What are the major questions that the field aims to answer?

Improving photosynthetic efficiency of the plants with the aim to achieve greater crop yields, or engineering plastid metabolism to improve plant abiotic or biotic stress tolerance are important challenges to address. I am also interested in how artificial photosynthesis can benefit humanity.

What aspects of open science are particularly beneficial to your field of research?

I think that many aspects of open science can benefit the research community in my field (but also in other fields). Open access may help our data to reach researchers or other stakeholders all over the world, without paywalls, thus enhancing the translation of latest research into practical applications, as well as facilitating the networking among researchers. Open data is incredibly important for the reproducibility of experiments, helping maintain or restore trust in science. Open data can also help move research along with the help of big data and AI. I feel strongly about the importance of publishing negative results to save money and time, preventing other researchers from carrying out similar studies in vain. All these are highly beneficial for my field of research, but to the entire research community as well.

Are there any key challenges when it comes to participating in open science that are specific to your research area?

One of the key challenges in my field is the extremely large amount of electron microscopic images that I am producing (I have around 50,000 transmission electron microscopic images, which need to be annotated). Annotating them correctly for open data deposition is quite challenging as data stewards are not available in my institution, and I do not have financial resources for this work. The same problem occurs with the APC (article processing charges) or open access fees for several publication outlets; research grants in my country and subscriptions of my institution or country do not necessarily allow me to publish in the journals I prefer to publish in. Many journals are too expensive for a typical early- to mid-career researcher grant, and simply inaccessible when you have not enough financial resources.

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