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While Nélida Leiva-Eriksson was wrapping up her PhD studies in biochemistry at Lund University in Sweden last year, her advisor suggested that she contact the school’s communications department to discuss her work and future plans. The timing was right: she had just published a paper in Plant & Cell Physiology on the differential expression of hemoglobin genes during sugar beet (Beta vulgaris spp. vulgaris) growth. After defending her thesis, Leiva-Eriksson was fielding phone calls from journalists eager to learn more about her work. A university press release issued in November had captured international media attention.
“Now, after everything has calmed down, I think overall [the experience] was very good,” says Leiva-Eriksson, who is now at the University of Essex in the U.K. “I got a ...
