This nanotechnology expert works with both plant and brain cells

Markita Landry is the first to admit that the two applications her research addresses – imaging brain chemistry and delivering genetic material into plants – are rather divergent.

In fact, she never intended to work with plants at all. ‘When I started the lab in 2016, it took almost a year and a half to be able to do animal work, so we practised on plant tissue,’ she says. But in the process of working with plant tissues, her team made significant discoveries about how they internalise nanoparticles. ‘It was all very accidental. Basically, it was just meant to be for testing, then it became a whole thesis project and now it’s a whole part of the lab.’