Antonio

I was awarded my B.A. in Biology at the University of Málaga in Spain and my Ph.D. in Biology in the Estación Experimental "La Mayora" in Algarrobo-Costa (Málaga, Spain), a center funded by the Spanish High Council for Scientific Research, under the supervision of Prof. Jesús Cuartero and Prof. Antonio Heredia. During my Ph.D. we studied the role of the fruit cuticle and how humidity and temperature affect the properties of the cuticle, in order to elucidate the mechanisms controlling the cherry tomato fruit cracking physiopathy. To achieve this main goal we have applied combined classical horticultural techniques with biophysics and plant biomechanics methods to study several tomato cultivars that exhibit different fruit cracking propensities . To this end, I spent a summer working with Prof. Karl J. Niklas in the Department of Plant Biology at Cornell ; my first introduction to Cornell.

After graduating, I spent a year studying the cell wall structure and composition of several strawberry transgenic lines as research assistant with Prof. Miguel Ángel Quesada (University of Malaga). This interest in plant cell walls and fruit physiology led me to the Rose lab where I am currently a postdoctoral researcher funded by Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia and a fellowship as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar (CIES). Our work aims to combine transcriptomic and proteomic tools to elucidate the differential patterns of protein and gene expression in tomato fruit that are related to the structure and function of the fruit cuticle. I am also working as part of a group to characterize a new tomato mutant, Delayed Fruit Deterioration (DFD), in order to better understand the molecular basis of fruit softening.