I'm studying the fruit of Margaritaria nobilis, which exhibits a beautiful iridescent appearance caused by the helicoidal arrangement of cellulose fibres in the secondary cell wall of the endocarp. This helicoidal arrangement gives rise to structural colour, colour that is caused by features at the nanoscale rather than pigments. I try to understand how the properties of the cellulose fibres affect the architecture of the cell wall and what other compounds are involved in the arrangement. I isolate cellulose by a sequence of chemical purifications, monitored via ssNMR and FT-IR, and then characterise the obtained cellulose fibres via AFM and TEM. Furthermore, I'm also interested in the other compounds in the plant cell wall, mainly xylan, and how they interact with the cellulose and influence its arrangement.
I did my Bachelor in Chemistry and my Master in Chemical Engineering at Graz University of Technology, Austria, including a semester abroad at University of Minho, Portugal, and two summer schools, at Syracuse University, US and Rutgers University, US.
