AAF-SFBV Thesis Prize 2025: Léa Barreda’s work on the metabolic diversity of seeds has been recognized.

Seeds are a vast reservoir of specialized metabolites that play a crucial role in the interaction of plants and seeds with their environment.
This biochemical complexity is at the heart of the work of Léa Barreda, winner of the 2025 AAF-SFBV joint prize for her thesis on the diversity and plasticity of the specialized metabolome of Brassicaceae seeds. This prize was accompanied by a check for €500.

Conducted within the SEED-DREAM (“Seed – Development, Regulation and Metabolism”) team at the Jean-Pierre Bourgin Institute (INRAE, AgroParisTech, Paris-Saclay University), under the supervision of Massimiliano Corso and Loïc Lepiniec, her thesis focuses on how plants manage the composition of their metabolites under the effect of abiotic stress. Using metabolomic, genetic, and biochemical approaches, she has contributed to advancing knowledge on the relationships between metabolic diversity and seed adaptation strategies.

This is a rapidly growing field: the exploration of specialized plant metabolism, which aims to discover the biosynthetic pathways and ecological functions of compounds such as glucosinolates, flavonoids, and phenolic acids. These compounds play a role in defense against pathogens, oxidative stress, and communication between plants and their environment.

Before her thesis, Léa Barreda was already interested in the physiology of germination and the biosynthesis of carotenoids, particularly those involved in the biosynthesis of abscisic acid, a key hormone in the regulation of dormancy. She then joined the SeedNapic project, which aimed to characterize the metabolic pathways of sinapic acid in seeds, a project funded by the Saclay Plant Sciences Network (SPS).
Currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB, CSIC) in Madrid on an EMBO fellowship, Léa Barreda is exploring the diversity of specialized metabolites associated with lipid droplets in bryophytes such as Marchantia polymorpha and Radula obconica. This work sheds new light on the evolution of secondary metabolisms and their role in the adaptation of plants to terrestrial life.

With this award, the AAF and SFBV recognize the growing importance of integrative plant metabolism biology, a field at the heart of sustainability and innovation in plant biology.