After graduating in Biology (06/1987, Universitat de València), I got my PhD (01/1993, Universitat de València) working on how plants regulate their growth in response to environmental light conditions. Next, I did three postdocs: in Cathie Martin’s group (John Innes Center, Norwich, UK) working on plant transcription factors (03/1993-10/1995); in Peter Quail’s team (Plant Gene Expression Center, UC-Berkeley, USA) to work on phytochrome signaling in Arabidopsis thaliana (01/1996-01/2000); and Salomé Prat laboratory (Instituto de Biología Molecular de Barcelona, CSIC, Barcelona, Spain), working on photoperiod-regulated potato tuberization (01/2000-10/2001). In November 2001, I’ve got a permanent position as an ICREA Research Professor and established my own research group. Currently, I develop my research in the CRAG (Barcelona), studying how plants respond to vegetation proximity.

Research interests

Plants respond to vegetation proximity by elicitng a series of responses known as the shade avoidance syndrome (SAS). In the model system Arabidopsis thaliana, the most obvious SAS response in seedlings is the induction of the hypocotyl elongation. To modulate these responses, plants employ a large amount of regulatory components that form complex transcriptional regulatory networks. Many of these components are transcriptional regulators, as well as specific components of the nuclear pore complex. Recently, we have expanded our research to other plant species closely related to Arabidopsis that tolerate (instead of avoid) plant shade. This is the case of Cardamine hirsuta, a species that is amenable for genetic, cellular and molecular analyses.This new approach is allowing us to perform comparative genetic analyses between both species.