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La misión del Comité Asesor de Tesis (CAT) del CBGP (UPM-INIA/CSIC) es supervisar el progreso del trabajo de Tesis Doctoral de los investigadores predoctorales del CBGP.
El CAT proporciona consejo, asesoramiento y apoyo a los investigadores predoctorales del CBGP. Los miembros de CAT se reunen para discutir conjuntamente posibles imprevistos o conflictos que puedan surgir en la actividad de los investigadores predoctorales del CBGP y ofrecer recomendaciones individuales que contribuyan a resolver estas situaciones en el mejor interés de los investigadores jóvenes que desarrollan su trabajo de Tesis Doctoral en el centro. Este comité programa reuniones periódicas con cada uno de los investigadores predoctorales del CBGP para monitorizar el progreso de sus proyectos de investigación. Además, está disponible en cualquier momento para discutir cualquier dificultad que pueda obstaculizar el progreso óptimo de sus Tesis Doctorales a estos investigadores en las etapas iniciales de su carrera.
El CAT del CBGP está constituido por cuatro investigadores de las diferentes áreas de investigación del centro, y está presidido por el Subdirector de Programas Científicos del CBGP. La coordinadora del Programa de Doctorado de la UPM Biotecnología y Recursos Genéticos de Plantas y de Microorganismos Asociados participa rutinariamente en las reuniones del CAT ya que la mayoría de los investigadores predoctorales del CBGP se encuentran afiliados a este Programa de Doctorado de la UPM. A todos ellos les deseamos lo mejor en el desempeño de esta tarea.
Prof.: Araceli Diaz Perales (area Synthetic Biology and Bioengineering, SynBio2)
Araceli Díaz Perales is a Full Professor at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), teaching at the Escuela Técnica Superior Agronómica, Alimentaria y Biosistemas (UPM). Her scientific career has been focused on food safety/health and plant biotechnology, applying basic knowledge to the development of methods for the diagnosis and treatment of allergies, as well as methods for the detection of hidden allergens. Since rejoining the UPM (2006), she has led publicly funded projects of the National Research Program: The RETICs program of the Carlos III Institute, the Regional Funds from the Community of Madrid and the European Union H2020. The group has published more than 260 original articles in first-decile/quartile journals in the field of Allergy, with more than 3600 citations and an H 44 index (Isi web of Science). During this time, she has maintained an intense collaboration with the most relevant European clinical groups in food allergy, which develop their professional work in the Allergy services of the national health system (as reflected in his participation in RETICS), as well as with the R&D Department of the company ALK-Abelló, reflected in numerous joint publications and ALK-Abelló / UPM contracts. Since 2016, her group has started an intense collaboration with the company BIOD. This partnership was the basis for the ideas that will be developed in the EU Allerscreening project. Her research work is combined with her dedication to teaching in the Biotechnology Degree at the UPM, coordinating the subjects Metabolism and its regulation (second year), Immunology (third year), and Molecular Pathology (third year; Health Biotechnology itinerary). She is also the Coordinator of the Health Biotechnology track. On the other hand, she has supervised final degree projects since 2012, and has supervised five completed doctoral theses, four of them awarded with the UPM Extraordinary Doctoral Prize (2012, 2014, 2017, 2020).
Dr. Alejandro Couce (area Computational Systems Biology and Genomics, CsBGP)
Dr. Couce leads the Evolutionary Systems Genetics of Microbes lab at the CBGP, where real-time evolution experiments with bacteria are combined with computational methods to address key questions in evolutionary ecology and genetics. He completed his PhD at the National Centre for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC, Spain) and gained 6 years of postdoctoral experience abroad, including 4 years in France (University of Paris –INSERM) and 2 years in the UK as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow (Imperial College, London). In 2019, he established his lab at CBGP through a Junior Group Leader position funded by the Severo Ochoa program (2017-21) and a prestigious 5-year Madrid 'Atracción de Talento' fellowship. Dr. Couce is also actively involved in teaching at UPM, particularly in the Master of Biotechnology and the Master of Computational Biology programs, where he teaches advanced computational approaches to evolutionary genetics.
Prof. Fernando Garcia-Arenal Rodríguez (area Interaction of Plants with Environment, IPM)
Prof. Fernando García-Arenal obtained a PhD in Plant Pathology at the UPM and currently is a Catedrático Emérito de Universidad UPM. Since 2008 he has been the Research Group Leader at Centro de Biotecnología y Genómica de Plantas, CBGP-UPM-CSIC/INIA, and the CBGP´s Director between 2006 - 2016. He coordinated the Doctoral Programme on “Biotechnology and genetic resources of plants and associated microorganisms” between 2016 and 2023 and was the Director of the Doctoral Area in Agroforestry and Environment Technologies at the UPM for 4 years. His research focus and scientific career is concentrating on plant-pathogen interactions and virology. His early independent research focused on the genetic diversity and structure of virus populations, as well as on the mechanisms that generate virus diversity. Later he moved to study the evolution of plant-virus interactions, with significant contributions to understanding the evolution of virulence, host defence, and host range, including virus overcoming of resistance in crops. Meanwhile, his research has evolved to consider virus evolution in increasingly complex frameworks.
Dr. Mónica Pernas Ochoa (area Plant Development, DP)
Dr. Pernas is an INIA-CSIC independent researcher. She did her PhD in the area of plant defence, in the laboratory of Prof. Salcedo at the Biotechnology Department, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Unit, School of Agriculture Science of Polytechnic University in Madrid. In 1999, she joined the Prof. Jose J. Sanchez-Serrano’s lab at the National Centre of Biotechnology (CNB, CSIC) in Madrid as a post-doctoral fellow, working on the characterization of signalling hormonal pathways in response to defence and wounding. In 2003, she did a second postdoc in Liam Dolan´s lab at the John Innes Centre (JIC, UK) working on the hormonal regulation of root stem cell niche development. From 2002 to 2005 she was a Project Scientist in the Cell and Developmental Biology Department at JIC. Later she moved as a senior postdoctoral to the Plant Sciences Department at Oxford University (UK) where she expanded her research interest into the study of root patterning. Since 2012, she has been leading a research group focused on root developmental traits associated with plant adaptability to extreme environmental conditions. Recently, she has participated and lead national and international projects aim to uncover the genetic and molecular factors underlying root adaptation to climate change in species of agronomic interest. The ultimate goal of her lab is to assist agriculture in the evaluation of the consequences of adverse nutrient and environmental conditions on plant growth and to develop crops better adapted to climate change.
Dr. Manuel Piñeiro Galvín (Deputy Director of Scientific Programs)
Dr. Piñeiro is a senior scientist at the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agrarias-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (INIA-CSIC). After graduating in Biology at the Universidad de Sevilla (1986), he earned his PhD in Sciences at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM, 1991) working in the Centro de Biología Molecular-Severo Ochoa – CSIC. He did his first postdoctoral stay at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) between 1992 and 1994 when he was granted a European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) postdoctoral fellowship to work in the group of Dr. George Coupland (John Innes Centre, UK). In 2001 he was awarded a Ramón y Cajal grant to start his research line in INIA where he obtained a staff scientist position in 2002. His research group at the CBGP is interested in understanding the genetic and molecular regulation of plant developmental transitions such as the initiation of flowering that has a direct impact on crop yield. His laboratory is contributing to unveiling the involvement of epigenetic mechanisms in the regulation of plant developmental processes like flowering time and the adaptation of plants to fluctuating environmental conditions with particular emphasis on the increase in ambient temperature associated with the current scenario of climate change. Currently, he serves as a representative of INIA in the European Plant Science Organization (EPSO) and he is also Deputy Director for Scientific Programs in the CBGP.
Dr. Begoña Benito Casado (Full Professor of Microbiology at the Polytechnic University of Madrid)
Begoña Benito is full professor of Microbiology and teaches various undergraduate and master's degree courses at ETSIAAB. She is the principal investigator of the UPM research group ‘Ionic Homeostasis and Cell Cycle’ and at CBGP she is part of the Plant Hormonal Regulatory Networks group within the research line Plant Interactions with the Environment. Her research focuses on the study of ionic homeostasis in fungi and plants, specifically the molecular and physiological study of ion transporters to discover their role in salt tolerance and the acquisition of nutrients such as K+. She has recently focused her research on studying the role of endophytic fungi symbionts of plants in salt tolerance and K+ nutrition, using the symbionts Serendipita indica and Arabidopsis thaliana as a model of interaction between plants and fungi. She is currently the coordinator of the Doctoral Programme in Biotechnology and Genetic Resources of Plants and Associated Microorganisms at the UPM.