In 2003 I joined the Biotechnology of Plant-Microbiome Interaction research group with an FPI scholarship to carry out my Doctoral Thesis, which I finished in 2007 with a European doctorate mention.

Since 2011 I have been part of the faculty and I am currently Senior Lecturer in Plant Physiology at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the San Pablo CEU University. I have two six-year research periods (CNEAI), I have participated in 14 research projects funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and by the Community of Madrid and in 12 R&D projects with companies. I have made 60 communications to national and international conferences, and I have published 31 articles and 5 book chapters.

I have completed two pre-doctoral stays at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Center for Terrestrial Ecology (the Netherlands), in which, in addition to perfecting my knowledge of multivalent statistics, I specialized in molecular techniques for the study of microbial communities. I have carried out a postdoctoral stay at the Zaidín Experimental Station, CSIC (Granada) in which I improved my knowledge about metagenomic techniques.

In a first stage, when I joined the research group, the research line was aimed to the study of plant- beneficial rhizobacteria (PGPR) interaction from the double approach:

   a) Capacity of the bacteria inoculated in the roots of the plants to modify the physiology of the plant at the following levels: plant growth promotion, induction of systemic resistance (ISR) and protection against abiotic stress.

   b) Study of rhizospheric microbial communities influenced by plant exudates. My doctoral thesis, as well as the first works that I published, were more associated with this second type of approach.

Subsequently my work was progressively integrated into the part of the modification of the physiology of the plant. Throughout all these years we have:

i) Demonstrated the ability of plants to select, through their exudates, the composition of the rhizospheric microbiome.

ii) Isolated and selected many PGPR based on their ability to promote growth, induce ISR in plants and/or improve plant adaptation to abiotic stress.

iii) Proven that the application of many of these PGPR in different plant species (from model plants to plants of agronomic interest) can modify the physiology of plants at different levels and by different mechanisms.

This modification of the physiology of the plant was sought with different biotechnological objectives:

- Application of PGPR as biofertilizers and to improve the general fitness of the plant.

- To improve the defensive capacity of the plant against biotic stress by induced systemic resistance (ISR).

- To improve the adaptation capacity of plants to situations of abiotic stress (drought, salinity, cold, etc...) by induced systemic tolerance (IST).

- And to induce the secondary metabolism of plants by modifying their capacity to produce and accumulate bioactive molecules of pharmaceutical or nutritional interest.

In recent years we have been trying to elucidate the mechanisms of action of some PGPR using genomic and transcriptomic techniques (RNAseq) and analysis of certain plant physiology parameters that can be considered markers of plant modification.

I am currently co-directing my first Doctoral Thesis, which focuses on the study of the improvement of the adaptation of 1-year-old olive plants to saline stress, using PGPR. In this thesis we have selected bacteria and try to elucidate the changes that these bacteria induce in the physiology of the olive plant and relate them to the improvement of adaptation to salt stress.