Human world population is increasing drastically generating
unprecedented needs for energy and food. The massive exploitation
of fossil fuels to satisfy this energy demand is producing a high
accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere and the subsequent
climate change.
This is affecting crop yield and reducing land area suitable for agriculture,
ultimately, increasing malnutrition and its associated human diseases.
In the
current climate emergency scenario
with energy and food shortage,
microalgae
cultivation represents an opportunity as promising sources of sustainable biofuels,
agricultural biostimulants, animal feed and human nutrients contributing to the
removal of the accumulating CO2. Nonetheless, the molecular mechanisms
controlling the biosynthesis of compounds of biotechnological interest remain
mostly uncharacterized in microalgae, hindering development of their full
potential as cell-factories that could contribute substantially to solve these
challenges. In our group we follow
molecular systems biology
multidisciplinary
approaches combining
omics technologies with High Performance Computing and
mathematical methods
to develop predictive models characterizing the molecular
mechanisms controlling the functioning and physiology of microalgae to promote their
biotechnological applications.
We follow
an
evolutionary methodology
in the characterization of these mechanisms extending
our studies to the
green lineage or viridiplantae
focusing specifically in the terrestralization
event during plant evolution. Our favourite model organisms are
Ostreococcus
tauri, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Klebsormidium nitens, Marchantia polymorpha
and
Arabidopsis thaliana.
We also study the microalgae of industrial interest
Haematococcus lacustris
and
Chromocloris zofingiensis
and crops such as
wheat or Triticum aestivium
and
tomato or Solanum lycopersicum.
Our group in part of the
Institute for Plant Biochemistry and Photosynthesis (IBVF)
in Seville (Spain) a join center between the
University of Seville
and
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC).