Irene Romero de la Fuente

Dr. Irene Romero was graduated in Biological Sciences by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) in 2002 and in Food Science and Technology by the UCM in 2005. In 2003 she joined the “Science and Technology of Vegetable Products” group, in the “Instituto del Frío” (CSIC, Madrid) and in 2008 she presented her PhD thesis focused on the beneficial effect of a pretreatment with high CO2 levels in the improvement of the quality of table grapes cv. Cardinal during their storage at low temperature. Concretely, studying the response of the phenylpropanoids metabolism and proteins related to pathogenesis (PRs). Afterwards, she worked for 7 months in Algentech Ltd, a technology development company in Norwich, United Kingdom. She participated in a project developing organelle transformation techniques using Nicotiana tabacum as model plant. In 2009, she obtained the competitive postdoctoral contract from the Spanish Government and joined the group of Dr. Arnaud Bovy at Plant Research International-Wageningen University (The Netherlands). She worked on the identification and characterization of transcription factors related to the biosynthesis of proanthocyanidins in strawberries. Later on, she studied the role of glycosylation in tomato quality traits, mainly through the development of the functional genomics platform, using reverse genetics techniques. In 2011, she obtained the competitive contract “Juan de la Cierva” and returned to the ICTAN-CSIC (Madrid). She has been studying the role of transcription factors, ERFs and DREBA1s, in the modulation of the expression of dehydrins and PRs in table grape exposed to high CO2 levels and low temperature. From 2015, she works at ICTAN as hired personnel, studying the role of WRKYs transcription factors and heat shock proteins on the maintaining of quality of table grapes during postharvest. Nowadays, she is willing to apply this knowledge to improve the postharvest storage of red fruits.