AGR-164 GROUP’S MEMBERS

Professors and Doctors

Dr. Jesús Valentín Jorrín Novo

Ph D in Biology at the University of Córdoba (1986). After two years of postdoc at the Royal Holloway-University of London (1987-88) and the Samuel Robert Noble Foundation-Ardmore (OK-USA), I joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, being, since then, assistant profesor (1988-1991), Lecturer (1991-2012), and Full Professor (2012- ). Head of the Agroforestry and Plant Biochemistry, Proteomics, and Systems Biology Research Group since 2010.

I have tried in all my professional life to follow what I do understand is the main mission of the University, to connect the research and the academy, and offer to undergraduate, master, and Ph. D. students the possibility of an active participation in research projects as a mean of being trained and educated in science. Thus, I have supervised/co-supervised 27 Doctoral Theses, 5 more as Tutor, 15 Master Theses and 30 Degree Theses.

I have participated, in the last 10 years in 5 national (4 as IP), and 5 European financed projects, plus 7 financed by different Latin American and Portuguese agencies.

I have shown throughout my professional career, the capacity of establishing national and international collaborations and in the last ten years it has mostly focused on Latin America. I have participated in research projects funded by national agencies with groups from Portugal, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Paraguay and Colombia. I have participated, since 2004 in 5 projects financed by the EU within different programs. Some of the publications have been co-authored with groups from Brazil, Japan, France, Austria, Germany and Argentina. During the last ten years, I have supervised PhD students not only from Spain, but from other countries (Algeria, Paraguay, Portugal, Brazil, Turkey, Dominican Republic, Tunisia, Mexico). Besides, during the same time I have received 33 foreign doctoral or postdoctoral students (Brazil, Italy, Bulgaria, Argentina, Turkey, Colombia, Poland, France, Chile, Argentina and Cuba) for periods from one month to one year.

I am a senior editor of Journal of Proteomics and Acta Physiologia Plantarum, associated editor of Frontiers in Plant Sciences-Proteomics, and member of the editorial board of six more journals. I participate as a regular reviewer for around 50 journals within the plant sciences, biochemistry and molecular biology, and proteomics areas. Also, I am project evaluator for Spanish-speaking and other countries (Belgium, France, Switzerland, Israel, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Colombia, Argentina, and Uruguay) agencies. I have organized or being part of the scientific/organizing committees of 23 International meetings.

I am well recognized at the international level for my contributions in the plant proteomics field and more concretely to the forestry field. I have participated in the creation of the Spanish Proteomics Society (SEProt), and the European Proteomics Association (EuPA), where I played an important role up to 2015. I also participated in the launch of the Journal of Proteomics. I have been responsible for the plant proteomics section within events of SEProt, EuPA and HUPO.

I have made important and recognized contributions to the study of parasitic plants and, in the last 15 years, to forest tree species at the molecular and proteomic level. Both are defined as recalcitrant and orphan species of great difficulty from an experimental point of view. I have recently moved into the Systems Biology direction by integrating –omics approaches and data with those of classical biochemistry, and physiology in order to catalogue forest tree populations, and to understand the molecular bases of the germination process, recalcitrance, and the responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. After 15 years of working with encina, the generated knowledge and optimized technology is being transferred to the productive sector through public and private organizations. They are now being used in selecting elite, resilient, genotypes, as an approach for breeding. The last, but no the less, is the analysis of encina acorns (bellota) for trazeability studies and the identification of bioactive compounds, it related to the renewed interest in using the fruit as a nut or for nutritional purposes.

In the final stage of my professional career, my goal is to consolidate the research group and give the responsability of its direction to those who, from their youth, capacity and interest, are the ones who carry out the hard daily work, Dr. M. Angeles Castillejo and Dr. M. Dolores Rey.

Curriculum Vitae:

Profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jesus_Jorrin-Novo

ORCID: 0000-0002-8778-3604

e-mail: bf1jonoj@uco.es

Dra. María Ángeles Castillejo Sánchez

María Ángeles Castillejo Sánchez is hired by the “Ramón y Cajal” program (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation “MICINN”) on the University of Córdoba (UCO). Since the beginning of her research career, she has different stays in research centers of recognized national (Institute for Sustainable Agriculture, CSIC) and international prestige (INRA/CNRS/UB Dijon, France; University of Vienna, Austria; University of Aveiro, Portugal). After obtained several competitive grants of national prestige (Juan de la Cierva, postdoctoral mobility fellowship for stays in foreign centers) from the MICINN, and international (Marie Sklodowska-Curie European fellowship), she joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the UCO in 2019 with a Ramón y Cajal contract.

Her research focuses on the study of the response of plants to biotic and abiotic stresses, including model systems, crop species and forest species. Her current research line is integrated into the main line of the AGR-164 group led by Prof. Jesús V. Jorrín Novo, and is focussed to the study of the most representative species of the Mediterranean forest and the agrosilvopastoral system “dehesa”, the holm oak, from a mustidisciplinary point of view. Through physiological and molecular studies (using biochemical and omic tools) her research aims to identify resistant or tolerant individuals “elite individuals” against the main stresses that threaten the survival of this species, drought and the decline syndrome. She is currently responsible, together with Professor J.V. Jorrín Novo, for a research project (I+D+i 2019 Projects “Retos Investigación” -MICINN) whose main objective is the identification of elite genotypes, resistant to the decline syndrome, through assisted selection of molecular markers and elicitor priming of defence responses through the use of chemical inducers.

She also teaches at the UCO University in several Degrees and Masters of Biotechnology and Forestry Engineering, as well as in training courses. In addition, she also teaches at the University of Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), “Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo” (INTEC), since 2018.

Profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ma_Castillejo

ORCID: 0000-0003-2017-1029

e-mail: bb2casam@uco.es

Dra. María Dolores Rey Santomé

Dr. María Dolores Rey Santomé finished her PhD studies in Biological Sciences from the University of Cordoba (UCO) in March 2015. Currently, Dr. Rey is a postdoctoral researcher Juan de la Cierva-Incorporacion (2020-2023) in the research group AGR-164 (Agroforestry and Plant Biochemistry, Proteomics and Systems Biology) in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UCO. Her professional career has been performed at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (IAS)-CSIC (predoctoral stage), John Innes Centre (Norwich, UK) (postdoctoral stage) and UCO (postdoctoral stage).

Her first works were focused on a cereal breeding programme by using cytogenetic tools, DNA based markers and genetic engineering. In 2018, she started in the AGR-164 group participating in the main research line of the AGR-164 group focused on the molecular biology of Holm oak (Q. ilex) by using modern -omics approaches (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics). Currently, her main research line is focused on the use of DNA-based markers, genome sequencing, and transcriptomic studies in Q. ilex for the identification of molecular markers of tolerance to biotic and abiotic factors.

Dr. Rey combines her research with teaching work at the UCO in the Degrees of Agri-Food Engineering and Rural Areas, Forestry Engineering, Oenology, Biochemistry, and in the University Master’s Degree in Forestry Engineering. In addition, since 2020, she teaches classes at the Instituto Tecnologico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) as a visiting professor.

Profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria_Dolores_Rey

ORCID: 0000-0002-6967-8536

e-mail: b52resam@uco.es

Dr. Víctor Manuel Guerrero Sánchez

Profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Victor_Guerrero-Sanchez

: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victormanuelguerrero/

ORCID: 0000-0002-0777-0476

e-mail: b12gusav@uco.es

Dª. Marina Muñoz Triviño

Postdoctoral researcher contracted under the EU Next Generation programme with a Margarita Salas grant. She completed a PhD in Biotechnology, approved by the Complutense University of Madrid, at the University of Aberystwyth (UK) with a one-year stay during the thesis at the PSB-VIB centre in Ghent (Belgium). She was awarded by the Spanish Society of Malherbology as the best thesis in this discipline in 2021. During her career, which is framed in Plant Reproduction, Plant Health and Programmed Cell Death, she has also worked at INIAV in Oeiras (Portugal) and at the Technical University of Munich (Germany) where she spent two years, prior to her incorporation at the UCO.

His research in the AGR-164 group (Biochemistry, Proteomics and Plant and Agroforestry Systems Biology) at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, is mainly focused on the validation of genes potentially associated with the resilient phenotype against the decline syndrome. To address it, she is working on developing the Arabidopsis thaliana-Phytophthora cinnamomi pathosystem for its use as a tool in the validation of genes described in Quercus ilex. In addition to the study of the level of gene expression and its associated phenotypes, it is allowing us to monitor the plant-pathogen interaction using confocal microscopy in vivo. On the other hand, she collaborates in the study of biostimulants that induce defence responses and promote the growth of Quercus ilex under stress conditions.

Following the basic principles of this group, to connect research and academia, she also teaches at the UCO in the degrees of Agri-Food and Rural Engineering, Oenology, Chemistry and Biochemistry. As well as co-directing Final Degree Projects in the Biology degree. She is an active member of the Spanish Federation of Biotechnologists and collaborates with the organisation Lecturers Without Borders.

Perfil: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marina-Trivino

ORCID: 0000-0001-6243-7900

Correo electrónico: mmtrivino@uco.es