Biography

During his PhD, he studied citrus hormonal response to abiotic stress; afterwards, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, (USA) to work with Prof. T-HD Ho on the molecular mechanism underlying hormone signal transduction. Since September 1999, he works at Universitat Jaume I de Castellón (UJI) where now is full professor and coordinates a research group.
During the last 10 years, he has focused on plant responses to adverse growing conditions. He has worked with several crops such as citrus, tomato, banana, papaya, peach, grape… but also with model plants such as Arabidopsis, barley, tobacco… He has also studied plant responses to biotic stress, role of phytohormones in mammalians… Over the years, he has developed new technologies for in vitro culture, biotechnology, simultaneous analyses of plant hormones and other metabolites... Finally, he has worked in more applied aspects, developing agronomic treatments and product applications to improve crop resilience to the stress derived from climate change.
His findings on hormonal control of leaf abscission, hormone signaling from shoots to roots and plant responses to complex stresses have had a great scientific impact, being highly cited in research articles and even in plant physiology textbooks. He has developed an important international activity as reflected by the collaborations kept with foreign groups.