Dr. Pedro Crevillén appointed group leader at Plant Development CBGP programme

Dr. Pedro Crevillén Lomas has been appointed as new group leader at CBGP (UPM-CSIC/INIA) after having achieved a Científico Titular position within the INIA-CSIC. He joins the Plant Development programme to lead the EPIGENETIC REGULATION OF AGRONOMIC TRAITS research line.

Dr. Crevillén research interests include epigenetics, genomics and plant development. He is an expert in flowering time regulation and a recognized researcher in the plant chromatin and epigenetic field.

Dr. Crevillén obtained his PhD at the Instituto de Bioquímica Vegetal y Fotosíntesis (University of Seville) in 2004. Then he joined the laboratory of Prof. Caroline Dean (John Innes Centre, United Kingdom), a leading laboratory in plant research in one of the most prestigious research institutes in the world. During his post-doctoral stage he studied the acceleration of flowering time by winter, a process known as vernalization which is the paradigm of epigenetic regulation in response to the environment. He was also co-investigator of an ambitious research grant characterizing the reprogramming of the epigenetic memory in plants (Crevillén et. al, 2014). After 8 years working in the John Innes Centre, he was awarded with a Marie Curie senior Intra European Fellowship in 2012. He joined the MOLECULAR BASES OF PLANT DEVELOPMENTAL PHASE TRANSITIONS group at the CBGP (UPM-INIA/CSIC) where he continued studying the chromatin-based molecular mechanisms controlling flowering time.

In 2015, as Ramón y Cajal researcher at the CBGP (UPM-INIA/CSIC), Dr. Crevillén started his own research line studying on the epigenetic regulation of plant developmental processes underlying key agronomic traits in Brassica crops. The rationale behind this innovative research program is to translate the vast amount of knowledge in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana into close relative crop species of the Brassica genus. In particular, his group is working with a Brassica rapa oilseed cultivar because this is one of the most important vegetables world-wide and Brassica crops are the main source of vegetable oil in Europe. Dr. Crevillén’s group have already made important contributions toward the understating of the epigenetic regulation of flowering time and the characterization of the epigenome in Brassica (Del Olmo et. al, 2019; Paya-Milans et. al, 2019; Poza-Viejo et. al, 2022). Given the great importance of Brassica oilseed crops world-wide, Dr. Crevillén’s research will contribute to address the food-security challenges faced by our society in the near future.

Full publication list: Dr. Pedro Crevillén Google scholar profile