Isabel is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Saunders group.
Isabel is leading the experimental and bioinformatic work on the “Yr15-breakdown rapid response” project, a collaborative effort combining bioinformatics and pathology to identify new sources of resistance to wheat yellow rust. The work spans bulk segregant analysis, long-read genome assembly, and short-read sequencing, with the ultimate goal of developing molecular markers for breeders.
She did her PhD under Cristóbal Uauy supervision. Her research focused on deciphering genetics mechanisms governing temperature and photoperiod integration in wheat, and their effects on shoot architecture. Her research included in-depth phenotyping and meristem transcriptomics with plants grown under various environments. She used genetics to map the causal gene/s underlying this environmental-genetic interaction and has also established a Temperature-Free Air Controlled Enhancement (T-FACE) system to replicate the future predicted UK weather.
Isabel arrived to JIC as an Erasmus+ student and then was a pre-doctoral researcher where she learnt Golden Gate cloning techniques and optimised a wheat meristems intact nuclei isolation protocol.
She studied Biotechnology with a plant focus at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Her experience in wheat started then, when she helped characterising a 189 Spanish landraces collection for quality traits and subsequent GWA study with the Mejora Genética Vegetal (Plant Breeding Research) team, under Assoc. Prof. Laura Pascual Bañuls supervision.
She hopes to contribute to deploying knowledge to future-proofs cultivars for a changing environment.
To achieve this, she believes we need open science, inter-disciplinary research, and diversity in the workplace.
She loves practising yoga, climbing, and playing football.