David Posé

Group Leader

I studied Biology at the University of Málaga in 2003, where I started my PhD working on the identification and characterization of Arabidopsis mutants that displayed impaired development under drought stress under the supervision of Profs. Miguel Ángel Botella and Victoriano Valpuesta’s supervision. Then I did four years of postdoctoral work with Prof. Markus Schmid at the Max Planck Institute (Tübingen, Germany) characterizing the role of several transcription factors involved in flowering time regulation in Arabidopsis.

Back in Spain, I started a second postdoctoral period at the Instituto de Hortofruticultura Subtropical y Mediterránea (IHSM – UMA-CSIC), where I was granted with «Ramón y Cajal» contract in 2014. One year later I started leading my own research group as a grantee of a Starting Grant project funded by the ERC. Since 2020, I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry (Universidad de Málaga) and researcher at the IHSM – UMA-CSIC. My current interest is the characterization of key regulators of strawberry fruit ripening, and the identification of genes responsible for quality traits such as flavor and aroma in this delicious fruit.

María Urrutia Rosauro

Postdoc

I graduated in Biotechnology at Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB 2010) and specialized in plant biotechnology (UAB 2011) and applied statistics (UNED 2013). Short after my specialization, I earned an FPI grant and did my Ph. D. in Crop genetics at the Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG, 2015). Under the supervision of Dra. Amparo Monfort, I mapped QTLs for strawberry fruit quality traits in a NIL population.

I started my postdoctoral period working at INRA (Bordeaux and Hautes de France) at Dr. Yves Gibon, Dr. Annick Moing and Dr. Catherine Giauffret labs developing metabolic markers for abiotic stress tolerance in maize. Then, I joined the biotechnology department of the seed company Enza Zaden for two years. Finally, I moved to IHSM in 2019, where I started working as a postdoctoral fellow at David Posé’s group being involved in multiple projects related to strawberry fruit ripening and quality.

Victoriano Meco Martínez

Research assistant

After obtaining a BSc in Biology (2007), I did a PhD program focused on Stress signalling pathways in different Mediterranean intertidal macroalgaes. During this period, I visited Dr Azcurra’s lab at UBA (Buenos Aires, Argentina) under the supervision of Prof. J.M. Capasso. Then, I started as a research technician in 2009, working on a project focused on deciphering the mechanisms of plant tolerance to abiotic stresses in tomato at M.A. Botella’s lab (UMA). After that, I did a PhD in plant stress physiology at M.C. Bolarin’ labs (CEBAS-CSIC, Murcia) focused on abiotic stress, production and quality in Tomato. During this period, I did a short stay at A. Belver’s lab (EEZ-CSIC, Granada) and B. Kohorn’s lab (Brunswick, MA, USA). I am currently working at D. Posé’s lab at the IHSM-UMA-CSIC, where I’m mainly in charge of the scientific-technical tasks of management and characterization of the plant material in the greenhouses and also the establishment of stable transgenic lines to study the role of transcriptions factors involved in strawberry fruit ripening.

Carlos Sánchez Gómez

PhD student

I studied Biochemistry at the University of Málaga. I have done my bachelor’s and master’s thesis at David Posé’s lab studying specific processes that regulate strawberry ripening. Right now, I am working on my PhD project studying an epidermis-specific gene regulatory network of ripe fruits of wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca). We are functionally characterizing the main transcription factors that control it and analysing how they interact with each other to regulate this gene network.

Raquel Jiménez Muñoz

Postdoc

I finished my studies in Biology at the University of Granada in 2014 and specialized in Plant Physiology doing the Master in Advances in Agrarian Biology and Aquaculture (2015). During this period, I worked at the Zoology department studying olive-grove entomofauna.

In 2015 I earned an FPI grant in the Department of Plant Physiology in the group of Dolores Garrido (AGR-209 Postharvest physiology in fruits of agronomic interest). I did my PhD in plant physiology and biotechnology, more specifically in the study of postharvest physiology of the fruit of Cucurbita pepo (Zucchini); identification and characterization of genes involved in cold tolerance; development of treatments that improve the postharvest of Zucchini; transient viral transformation systems; plant regeneration and genetic transformation in C. pepo.

I am currently continuing my training as a postdoctoral scientist with a «Margarita Salas» postdoctoral grant at David Posé’s group at IHSM-UMA-CSIC working on the characterization of the biological function and enzymatic activity of different candidate genes for the synthesis of different types of VOCs in strawberry, including compounds described as essential for strawberry aroma and for defense against pests and diseases.

Florencia Perotti

Postdoc

I studied Biotechnology at the National University of Litoral, Argentina. In 2016, I obtained a CONICET (Argentinean Research Council) Fellowship and I started my PhD in Biological Sciences at the Plant Biotechnology Laboratory in the Instituto de Agrobiotecnología del Litoral (IAL-UNL-CONICET, Santa Fe, Argentina) under the direction of Dr Raquel Chan and the co-direction of Dr Federico Ariel. During my doctoral thesis, I studied the involvement of transcription factors from the HD-Zip I family in the determination of Arabidopsis thaliana root architecture. Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher in Dr David Posé’s group at the IHSM-UMA-CSIC, studying transcription factor complexes involved in strawberry fruit ripening.