Pilar Prieto

PhD in Biology

Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible. Alameda del Obispo s/n. Apartado 4084. 14080 Córdoba. Phone: +34 957 499 293

Email: pilar.prieto@ias.csic.es

Doctor in Biology by the University of Córdoba (Spain). During the period 2002-2004 worked as a postdoctoral research in the Crop Genetics Department at the John Innes Centre (Norwich, U.K.). Since 2008 she is a member of the permanent research staff of the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (IAS) from the Spanish Research Council (CSIC), where she leads the laboratory of Crop Biotechnology. She has been trained as a molecular biologist, cell biologist and cytogeneticist.

Her research interest goes from classical plant breeding to chromosome manipulation and plant meiosis.  Unzip chromosome associations at early meiosis in cereals for plant breeding purposes, using a multidisciplinary approach (cell biology, plant breeding and proteomics), and chromosome manipulation to facilitate the introgression of desirable traits from related species into a crop such as wheat are included on her main research topics.

She has published in international per review journals such as Nature Cell Biology, Nature protocols or PNAS.

She was awarded with an EMBO short-term fellowship (2006) and more recently with an ERC Starting Grant (2009).

Research Interests:

  •  Chromosome manipulation for plant breeding purposes.
  •  Improvement of cereal products for food and non-food applications.
  •  Chromosome arquitecture and chromosome pairing during meiosis.
  •  Plant-benficial microorganisms interaction.

 

Melania Collado Romero

Postdoctoral  Researcher

Biochemist

Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible. Alameda del Obispo s/n. Apartado 4084. 14080 Córdoba. Phone: +34 957 499 257

Email: mcollado-romero@ias.csic.es

She obtained her Biochemistry degree at the University of Córdoba in 1998 and she was awarded with a special prize in Biochemistry. She got her Master Degree on 1999.  Doctor in Biochemistry by the University of Córdoba (2006) and awarded with the special prize for her PhD Thesis. She joined the group of Genomic and Animal Breeding at the department of Genetics at the University of Córdoba (2008) as postdoctoral researcher, where she acquired her proteomics background. From January 2010 she is working at the department of Plant Breeding at the IAS-CSIC focusing her research in proteomic studies of rice meiosis.

Research Interests:

  •  Qualitative and quantitative proteomic approaches to identify proteins implicated in chromosome recognition in plants.
  •  The role of post-translational modifications in plant meiosis.
  •  Implication of post-translational modifications in abiotic stresses in cereals.
  •  Plant breeding assisted by proteomic studies.

Mª Dolores Rey Santomé

PhD Student

Biologist
Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible. Alameda del Obispo s/n. Apartado 4084. 14080 Córdoba. Phone: +34 957 499 294

Email: mdoloresrey@ias.csic.es

She obtained her degree in Biology at University of Córdoba (UCO, Spain) in 2010. After one year, she finished her Master Degree in Protection, Production and Plant Breeding at University of Córdoba and started a Ph.D. program in Plant Breeding. Her research is focused in the development of super-wheat crops by introgressing agronomic traits from related wild species.

Research Interests:

  • Classical breeding to develop new genetic crosses between Hordeum species and bread wheat in the background of chromosome pairing mutants
  • Use of chromosome pairing mutants (ph1 mutants) as a routine tool in wheat breeding programmes
  • Replication and meiosis
  • Cytogenetic, fluorescence and confocal microscopy

 

María del Carmen Calderón Pérez

PhD Student

Biologist

Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible. Alameda del Obispo s/n. Apartado 4084. 14080 Córdoba. Phone: +34 957 499 294

Email: carmencalderon@ias.csic.es

She obtained her Biology degree at the University of Seville (Spain) in 2002. She was working in different research institutes in London, Spain and Austria, and got a Master Degree in Protection, Production and Plant Breeding at University of Córdoba in 2011. Currently, she is working on her PhD in plant breeding, which is focused on studying centromeres, telomeres and subtelomeres of chromosomes in cereals such as wheat or barley and their role in chromosome pairing during meiosis. She is also interested in the development of new wheat crops better adapted to (a)biotic stresses through the introgression of desirable genes from related wild species.

Research Interests:

  • Chromosome architecture and chromosome behaviour during meiosis
  • Genetic crosses between Hordeum species and durum wheat
  • ph1c mutants as a routine tool in durum wheat breeding programmes
  • Fluorescence microscopy
  • Cytogenetic tools