Luis Rodríguez-Moreno has a Bachelor's degree (2003) and a PhD (2008) in Biology from the University of Malaga (UMA). His scientific career has been completed as a postdoctoral researcher (2009-2011) and Juan de la Cierva Research Fellow (2011-2014) in the Department of Stress Biology and Plant Pathology of the Center of Edaphology and Applied Biology of Segura-CEBAS, belonging to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Subsequently, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher (2015-2018) at the Phytopathology Laboratory of Wageningen University (Wageningen, The Netherlands). In 2019 he obtained a research contract at the Genetics Area of the UMA. In 2020, after achieving a favorable evaluation from the National Agency for Evaluation and Prospective (ANEP) for the I3 mention for research quality, he obtained a permanent position as Associate Professor (PCD) at the Genetics Area. In March 2023 he promotes to Associate Professor (PTU) of Genetics at the Department of Cellular Biology, Genetics and Physiology of the UMA. His current research line is conducted at the Institute of Subtropical and Mediterranean Horticulture "La Mayora" (IHSM)-UMA-CSIC, where he takes part of the Biology and Plant Disease Control´s Group at the Research Area in Crop Protection. His research interests are focused on the search and identification of new effector proteins, secreted into the extracellular space, in pathogenic bacteria of woody and herbaceous plants with agricultural interest.

Graduated in Biology from the University of Malaga in 2020 and obtained a Master's Degree in Advanced Biotechnology in 2021. I am currently doing my doctoral thesis in the group of Cayo Ramos and Luis Rodríguez. One of my main objectives is to identify new extracellular proteins in the secretome of the phytopathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas savastanoi and determine their role in virulence when interacting with the olive tree.

I studied Biology at the University of Málaga. I have done the master’s thesis at Plant-bi laboratory generating engineering tools for the functional characterization of Type III secretion system effectors. Currently, I am working on my PhD Project focused on two virulence factors of the plant patogen Pseudomonas savastanoi pv. savastanoi (Psv). One of this factors, WhpR, is a transcriptional regulator of virulence shared among other pathogen of woody hosts belonging to the Pseudomonas syringae group. Moreover we are studying the regulation mediated by indol-3-acetic acid (IAA) in Psv. For our purposes we are using genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic techniques.

Adrián Pintado, PhD, es investigador postdoctoral con formación en Biología por la Universidad de Málaga (España), donde también realizó su maestría en Biotecnología Avanzada. Finalizó su doctorado bajo la supervisión del Prof. Dr. Cayo Ramos, donde se centró en identificar nuevas vías para la producción de auxinas e investigar el papel de las auxinas como moléculas de señalización en la bacteria fitopatógena Pseudomonas savastanoi. Durante su investigación postdoctoral en la Universidad de Leiden, Adrián ha estado involucrado en proyectos que utilizan herramientas bioinformáticas avanzadas como bacLIFE, que predice genes bacterianos implicados en rasgos beneficiosos o patógenos. Su trabajo también incluyó estudiar cómo los microbiomas podrían proteger a las plantas contra el estrés abiótico. Además, exploró las interacciones entre los microbiomas asociados a las plantas y sus plantas hospedantes, en particular cómo estas comunidades microbianas pueden mejorar la resiliencia de las plantas a factores estresantes ambientales como la sequía, la salinidad y las temperaturas extremas.

Laura M. Barrientos Moreno studied Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Sevilla, where she also completed her master’s in Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology. She conducted her Ph.D. at the Estación Experimental del Zaidín (EEZ-CSIC), obtaining her Ph.D. from the University of Granada in 2018. During her Ph.D., she investigated the connection between the metabolism of arginine and the second messenger c-di-GMP in regulating biofilm formation by the plant-beneficial bacterium Pseudomonas putida. After completing a one-year postdoctoral contract at the EEZ, she moved to the Biodiscovery Institute at the University of Nottingham (UK) as part of the National Biofilms Innovation Centre in 2020 to continue her postdoctoral training. Her main focus was on high-throughput screening and on the repurposing of approved drugs to identify anti-biofilm compounds against pathogenic polymicrobial communities and single-species biofilms with the view to the management of pathogenic biofilms. In 2024, she joined the Cayo Ramos and Luis Rodríguez´s group at the Instituto de Hortofrutícula Subtropical y Mediterránea La Mayora (Universidad de Málaga-CSIC) as a postdoctoral Research Fellow. Her work is focused on exploring the role of extracellular virulence factors identified in the plant-pathogen bacterium Pseudomonas savastanoi secretome.