The Group of Crop Biotechnology is included in the Plant Breeding Department of the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (IAS), a unique research centre within the CSIC mission in agricultural research.
We are interested in the analysis of genome organisation in cereals, particularly rice and wheat, combining confocal microscopy with genomic and proteomic approaches. Of special interest is the study of chromosome associations during meiosis, when genetic material is reduced by half. We manipulate these chromosome associations (using the ph1 mutants) to promote inter-specific recombination between wheat and related species (such as wild and cultivated barley) with the aim of transferring agronomic traits into wheat. Other research topics are based on the use of confocal microscopy to study the colonisation processes of diverse microorganisms in roots or fruits from cereals (wheat, barley and rice) or olive.
