Research
Our group aims at designing innovative and/or improved agronomic products, mainly comprising edible fruits and their derivatives, using genomics and biotechnology tools. We approach this goal from three perspectives, which, as you will see, are not always mutually exclusive:
Molecular Breeding
A first approach consists in browsing the natural variability of tomato-related wild species in order to identify loci conferring fruit quality traits. Once those loci are identified, we use marker-assisted breeding to transfer them to modern tomato cultivars. You can learn more about this approach by following the "Molecular Breeding" link.
Genetic Engineering and Synthetic Biology
Moving beyond the limits imposed by sexual hybridization and natural variability, we are able to design plant biofactories of added-value compounds as e.g. our purple tomatoes expressing human antibodies against rotavirus. Our aim is to incorporate the principles of Synthetic Biology to the design of innovative agronomic products, not only in tomato, but also in other solanaceae species. If you want to learn more, please follow the "Genetic Engineering & Synthetic Biology" link.
Biotech Tools
In the meantime, we have developed a number of biotech tools that have helped us (and we hope that will help you too) in our research. These tools include transient expression methods, color-guided VIGS, and DNA assembly methods among others. Please follow the link "Biotech tools" to learn more about them.
