Dr. Parisa Kakanj

Postdoc & Head of CEPLAS Imaging Platform

Parisa pioneered long-term live imaging of Drosophila epithelia, showing how insulin, TOR and autophagy pathways coordinate morphogenesis, wound closure, syncytium formation and tissue integrity. In collaboration with Angela Hay and Miltos Tsiantis, she adapted multiphoton microscopy to intact plant organs, delivering the first four-dimensional visualisations of microtubule dynamics during growth and root-sucker development.

As Head of the Cologne CEPLAS Imaging Platform, she works with Alga Zuccaro and colleagues across Cologne (university of cologne and MPi for plant breading) to embed state-of-the-art light, confocal and multiphoton microscopy in interdisciplinary plant-science projects.