Ursula Lütz-Meindl (Fig. 1) was born on March 12, 1956, in Linz, Austria, where she attended high school. Her academic career started in 1980 with a PhD supervised by Oswald Kiermayer, Professor at the former Institute of Plant Physiology at the University of Salzburg, Austria. She received her venia docendi (Habilitation) in 1987 and was awarded 1988 the “Christian Doppler Price” for outstanding achievements in biosciences from the Federal Government of Salzburg. She was promoted to an Associate Professor in 1997 at the University of Salzburg. Several research stays took her to the University of Canberra, Australia, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, where she established long-term research cooperation, for example, with Peter K. Hepler, Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA. Ursula Lütz-Meindl was a devoted scientist, and her main research object was the unicellular green alga Micrasterias denticulata. Back then, this alga might have appeared as some sort of curiosity with its beautiful, highly ornamented cell shape. Now it became clear that Zygnematophyceae (where Desmids belong to) are the closest sister to land plants, and therefore, the research on this model organism is highly important. Lütz-Meindl was a plant cell biologist in the best sense of the word, investigating many different cell biological aspects of (1) growth and cell shape formation as well as (2) stress responses and adaptation in this unique system. In the first aspect, cell wall development was a central question, and the function of Golgi bodies was investigated by immuno-TEM, TEM-coupled electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). The results on cell wall composition and transition are classical. But unlike other researchers, Ursula Lütz-Meindl never got stuck with one topic but investigated the involvement of cytoskeleton elements, ionic regulation, and signal transduction to answer the complicated interplay between these factors for the highly ornamented cell shape in Micrasterias as summarized in a review article (Meindl, 1993, Microbiol. Rev. 57, 415–433). For the second aspect, also a broad range of research questions was asked and answered. How does Micrasterias cope with different temperatures, UV irradiation, oxidative stress, or high salinity? Her works on salinity stress and programmed cell death (PCD) are highly cited and showed for the first time that this key element in higher plant development is also evident in a unicellular organism that is theoretically immortal. Another branch of research was the heavy metal impact on Micrasterias, where the elements zinc, copper, aluminum, cadmium, chromium, and lead were tested, and astonishingly different mechanisms of the cells to deal with these stressors were detected. The reader is referred to a comprehensive summary (Lütz-Meindl, 2016, Front. Plant Sci. 7:999 https://doi.org/10. 3389/fpls.2016.00999). Ursula Lütz-Meindl had an outstanding knowledge in all aspects of ultrastructural research, from classical transmission electron microscopy to advanced 3-D visualization methods like tomography and FIB-SEM. Particularly in her later works, e.g., in cooperation with Prof. Gerhard Wanner, Munich University, astonishing 3-D images Fig. 1 Ursula Lütz-Meindl (Photo C. Lütz)

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Ursula Lütz-Meindl (1956–2020)：一位忠实的植物细胞生物学家

Ursula Lütz-Meindl（图 1）于 1956 年 3 月 12 日出生于奥地利林茨，在那里上高中。她的学术生涯始于 1980 年，在奥地利萨尔茨堡大学前植物生理学研究所教授 Oswald Kiermayer 的指导下获得博士学位。她于 1987 年获得 venia docendi（资格认证），并于 1988 年因在生物科学方面的杰出成就而被萨尔茨堡联邦政府授予“基督教多普勒奖”。她于 1997 年晋升为萨尔茨堡大学副教授。多次研究停留将她带到澳大利亚堪培拉大学和美国马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校，在那里她建立了长期的研究合作，例如与马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校名誉教授 Peter K. Hepler ， 美国。Ursula Lütz-Meindl 是一位虔诚的科学家，她的主要研究对象是单细胞绿藻 Micrasterias denticulata。那时，这种藻类可能因其美丽、装饰精美的细胞形状而显得有些好奇。现在很明显，Zygnematophyceae（Desmids 所属的地方）是陆地植物的最近姐妹，因此，对这种模式生物的研究非常重要。Lütz-Meindl 是一位真正意义上的植物细胞生物学家，他研究了 (1) 生长和细胞形状形成以及 (2) 在这个独特系统中的应激反应和适应的许多不同细胞生物学方面。在第一方面，细胞壁发育是一个中心问题，高尔基体的功能通过免疫 TEM、TEM 耦合电子能量损失光谱 (EELS) 进行研究。关于细胞壁组成和转变的结果是经典的。但与其他研究人员不同的是，Ursula Lütz-Meindl 从不拘泥于一个主题，而是研究了细胞骨架元素、离子调节和信号转导的参与，以回答这些因素之间复杂的相互作用，导致 Micrasterias 中高度装饰的细胞形状，如评论中所述文章 (Meindl, 1993, Microbiol. Rev. 57, 415–433)。对于第二个方面，还提出和回答了广泛的研究问题。Micrasterias 如何应对不同的温度、紫外线照射、氧化应激、还是盐度高？她在盐胁迫和程序性细胞死亡 (PCD) 方面的工作被高度引用，并首次表明，高等植物发育的这一关键因素在理论上不朽的单细胞生物中也很明显。另一个研究分支是重金属对 Micrasterias 的影响，其中测试了元素锌、铜、铝、镉、铬和铅，并检测到细胞处理这些压力源的惊人不同机制。读者可参考综合摘要（Lütz-Meindl，2016，Front.Plant Sci.7:999 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2016.00999）。Ursula Lütz-Meindl 在超微结构研究的各个方面都拥有出色的知识，从经典的透射电子显微镜到先进的 3-D 可视化方法，如断层扫描和 FIB-SEM。