Education
2015   | PhD Biological Sciences | University of Exeter, Exeter, UK |
 2009  | MSc Plant Sciences | Wageningen University, Wageningen, NL |
 2010  | Agricultural Engineering | Universidad Pública de Navarra, Spain |

CV Summary
In 2010, I joined the laboratory of Prof. Nick Talbot FRS as a Marie Curie Fellow to carry my PhD at University of Exeter, UK. After a three-year post-doc in Exeter, I moved as a senior post-doctoral fellow to The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, UK. During that time, I investigated the biology of the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae, specialising in transcriptomics, phosphoproteomics, ChIP-seq, genetics, cell cycle biology and molecular biology. During that time, I participated in an ITN Marie-Curie project, 3 BBSRC projects (UK) and an ERC project. I produced more than 15 publications in international peer review journals including PNAS, Science, eLIFE, Nature and Nature Microbiology . In 2021, I obtained a "Retos de Investigation JIN" from “Agencia Estatal de Investigacion” as independent research post-doctoral fellow and joined UPNA. Afterwards I was awarded with an Andia Senior Talent fellowship to set up my own group. In 2022 I obtained a Ramon y Cajal fellow and a junior group leader position to set my own group called “Molecular Biology of Fungi”. The aim of MBF is to investigate the molecular mechanisms associated with infection caused by fungal pathogens. We investigate the blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae and the research program is based in three main areas: 1) cell cycle regulation and DNA damage; 2) transcriptional regulatory networks; 3) cellular heterogeneity. 

My research group has been funded by several grants including Agencia Estatal de Investigacion  to investigate the molecular mechanisms associated with cell cycle-mediated infection. In that grant we collaborated with Dr. Frank Menke and Prof. Nick Talbot (TSL, UK). We determined phosphorylation landscape and transcriptional network associated with appressorium -mediated plant infection and determine that our kinase of interest, Cds1, is tightly linked with MAPK signalling.  The group has also been financed by the European Research Council with a Starting Grant where I proposed to elucidate and understand at the molecular level the factors contributing to generate cellular heterogeneity driving infection in the blast fungus.  At the moment, my lab holds a solid network of collaborators from the UK, USA, Japan, Spain, and The Netherlands. My lab has recently received funding from AEI  to investigate the regulatory networks associated with melanisation. I have actively cooperated in disseminating our research and engage with the general public by carrying several radio interviews, podcast, tv and attending events. Our work has been presented in more than 50 scientific meetings, and since becoming independent, I have been invited to several conference and meetings as a speaker, including the Fungal Genetics Conference (USA), British Mycological Society (UK) and International Fungal Biology Conference (IFBC) (Greece) or the Gordon Conference (USA).       
I was an Assistant Feature Editor of Plant Physiology journal (2022-2024), a Guest Co-Editor of Frontiers special issue “Fungal Biology” (2022) and a reviewer for Nature Microbiology, Molecular Microbiology, PLoS Genetics, Molecular Plant Pathology, Microbiology Spectrum, Molecular Plant Microbe Interactions and Fungal Biology Reviews. I have review grants for AEI (Spain), ANR (France) and NSERC (Canada). I am a lecturer of Molecular Genetics, Crop Protection, Biomics and Frontiers in the knowledge for the Biotechnology Grade and in “Máster Universitario en Investigación e Innovación en Biotecnología “at UPNA.