Asier Largo-Gosens

I graduated in Biological Sciences at Universidad de León (ULE, Spain) in 2009. I obtained my PhD in Biological Sciences at the Plant Physiology and Biotecnology group at ULE (Spain) in 2016 with a cum laude score (the highest score) thanks to the funding by ULE PhD grant program. During my PhD I performed a short stay (3,5 months) in 2012 in the Centre de Reserca en Agrigenomica (CRAG, Barcelona). The results of my research provided relevant information about how plant cells are able to detoxify cell wall-targeting herbicides and, also the plant cell wall structural plasticity that allow plant to adapt to abiotic stresses. I learned about the plant cell culture, detoxifying enzyme activities and the biochemical analysis of cell wall structure and composition. Those results were published in six original research articles (all of them in Plant Sciences JCR Q1 journals). I was awarded with the Extraordinary Doctorate Award in sciences of ULE in 2020, for the productivity during my PhD studies. Then, I performed a 56 months postdoctoral stay in Universidad Andrés Bello (UNAB, Santiago, Chile) from 2017 to 2021, under the supervision of Dr. Ariel Orellana and in collaboration with Dr. Susana Sáez. During my postdoctoral stay, I obtained a Postdoctoral FONDECYT project (Conicyt, Chile) in competitive concurrency (82.000.000 $ CLP, approx. 100.000 EUR, 2017-2020) and, then, I also worked in two postdoctoral contracts from Universidad Andrés Bello (2020 and 2021). My research during this stage was focused in understanding the synthesis of pectic cell wall components using the mucilage from Arabidopsis thaliana seeds. I learned about molecular biology techniques in plant Sciences and the results of my research were published in five original research papers (all of them in Plant Sciences JCR D1 Journals). As a postdoctoral researcher in Chile, I supervised one Undergraduate thesis of Biotechnology (UNAB) in 2021 and one Master thesis in Biotechnology and Life (UNAB) in 2022. In December 2021, I joined the Plant Physiology and Biotechnology group at ULE, thanks to the funding of Postdoctoral fellow María Zambrano under the supervision of Dr. Hugo Mélida (ULE). During this period, we worked setting up a novel research line in the aforementioned group related with the role of cell wall glycan from microorganisms in the elicitation of plant innate immune responses. I perfomed two short stays: one in “Facultad de Farmacia” from “Universidad de Sevilla” in March-April 2022 (7 days) and other in the Department of Biologie at Phillips Universitat in Marburg (Germany) in May 2022 (1 month). We already sent one research paper which is under review (de la Rubia et al., 2022, BioRxiv). I also supervised two undergraduate thesis of Biotechnology (ULE) and I am currently supervising one PhD student at ULE. I was invited as a Guest Editor of Plants (Basel) Journal (Q1) for the elaboration of the Special Issue "Plant cell wall plasticity under stress situations" during 2022. During all my research activity I have been very active in disseminating my research which has been e presented at 16 Scientific Meetings with a total of more than 40 communications (being 7 of them conference talks in International meetings). I also participated in the teaching duties of practical classes at Biology and Biotechnology degrees from “Universidad de León” 2012-2013 (20 hours), as an associate professor in Plant and Environmental Biotechnology subject of the Biotechnology Degree from “Universidad Andrés Bello” (Chile) in 2021 (45 hours), and in the teaching duties of Plant Physiology Area of “Universidad de León” in 2021-22 (60 hours) and in 2022-23 (60 hours). Finally, I participated in outreach events such as EXPOCIENCIA at ULE and Pint of Science in 2022 in León.