French-polish scientist working her way in Denmark

Agnieszka Zygadlo Nielsen (born 1978) is originally from Poland, but moved to France when she was 9 years old. She has two masters from the university of Paris; one in genetics and one in oncogenesis (cancer research). She came to Denmark in 2002 as part of the Marie Curie research training network programme to write her PhD in photosynthesis at Department of Plant Biology. Here she met her husband, Per, who was working in another research group.
 

From academia to a private company
Agnieszka Zygadlo Nielsens first job after graduation was in academia. She got one year’s employment as a postdoc at the Department just after she handed in her PhD thesis. After that she moved to the private sector.

 

 - A few months before the end of my postdoc contract, I started to send out job applications, but without success even after being to interviews. Then I sent a spontaneous application to Aresa, a biotech company in Copenhagen, and it worked. I actually got the job while I still had two months left of my postdoc contract.

 

Aresa is mostly known for its land mine plants; plants that change colour from green to red when they grow in soil on top of land mines.

 - As a Research Scientist at Aresa I developped plant transformation methods, searched and cloned explosive sensitive promoters, as a part of generating plants to be tested in outdoor test sites under "real" conditions.

 

Unfortunately Aresa stopped all its plant biotech activities in September 2008 and the company closed down in December 2008. The final landmine plant was still not ready at that point and due to the financial crisis, no funding could be recruited to continue this project. Everyone had to find a new position.

 

Prepared for working life
Agnieszka Zygadlo Nielsens PhD was not industry orientated. Did she fee well prepared for a job in a private company?

 

 - Scientifically, yes.  The Department of Plant Biology and Biotechnology has a high scientific level, and I was well trained in communicating my results to others – we made a lot of presentations in the group and participated in conferences.

 

Back to academia

After leaving Aresa, Agnieszka Zygadlo Nielsen was employed at an Aarhus University research group, located at LIFE.  

 

 - I was employed at Aarhus University as a postdoc within the European Renewall consortium, a large international project which aims to optimize plant cell walls for biofuel applications by making them more readily converted into fermentable sugars for alcohol production.

 

In 2010 Agnieszka Zygadlo Nielsen returned to Department of Plantbiology and Biotechnology at LIFE. She currently works on the UNIK synthetic biology project where one of the goals is to couple photosystem I to cytochromes P450 by making the electron flow possible between those two complexes. She enjoys being back.

 

 - Exchanging knowledge and having interaction between researchers and students is one of the things I really like about being at the department.

 

Advice to future students
 - It’s hard work making a PhD! But the interaction with others is very important. Not all knowledge can be found in books. And you have to prepare yourself for the future – hopefully with the help of your supervisor. Discussions and preparation of what happens after the PhD education should be obligatory during the PhD. You have to ask them – and ask yourself – what can I do when I’ve graduated? What are the possibilities? And eventually reorientate your activities and courses in the last year of your PhD.

 

 - My PhD subject was was very "academical" and not industry orientated, but there has to be room for pure research projects like that at a university. You have to find a balance, though – during the last year of the PhD maybe you can direct yourself and your research to establish common points with industry, especially with the assays and methods used.