Dr An-Shan Hsiao PhD

• PhD, School of Biological Sciences, the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
• MSc, Institute of Plant Biology, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
• BSc, Department of Life Science, National Taiwan University, Taiwan

After completing her undergraduate and master’s studies at National Taiwan University, An-Shan went to Hong Kong to conduct a PhD study with Prof. Mee Len Chye, where she investigated protein-lipid interactions in Arabidopsis reproductive development. Her first postdoc research was in the lab of Prof. Tuan-Hua David Ho at Academia Sinica, where she studied the role of a rice intrinsically disordered protein in dehydration stress tolerance. This work discovered a novel mechanism of how protein disorder regulated highly ordered cytoskeleton and cell wall organization for adaptative responses under dehydration stress. Inspired by this work, she decided to pursue the research of protein disorder as her future career. She moved to the UK in 2019, working at the University of Cambridge, University of Exeter and John Innes Centre. She was awarded BBSRC Discovery Fellowship 2023 and started her independent research team at the University of Birmingham in 2024.

Postgraduate students interested in studying plant intrinsically disordered proteins are welcome to contact her directly via email.

Global climate changes cause environmental stresses such as drought, heat and salinity, which dramatically affect plant growth and reduce the yield of crop plants. Hence, understanding the mechanism of how crop

plants deal with environmental stresses will benefit crop design for sustainable agriculture. Research in Dr An-Shan Hsiao's lab utilizes cell biology, biochemical, biophysics and structural biology approaches to investigate how protein disorder leads to plant physiological plasticity for abiotic stress adaptation. The general aim is to understand the mechanism of protein disorder in regulating plant growth and development to cope with environmental challenges and to provide knowledge in fundamental biological processes to raise strategic thinking for future sustainable agriculture. 

Research objectives include:

1. Investigation of a relationship between structure, disorder and function in plant intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) involved in abiotic stress responses.
2. Monitoring conformation changes and interactions of IDPs within plant cells.
3. Determination of the role of biomolecular condensates in plant abiotic stress responses.
4. Establishment of research resources for plant IDPs.