In 1996, I obtained the Bachelor degree in Biochemistry (Universitat Autònonma de Barcelona, UAB). In 1997, I moved to France to obtain my master degree (Bases de la Production Végétale, option Biotechnologie et Amélioration des Plantes, Université de Montpellier II, Université de Perpignan and l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Agronomie (ENSA) de Montpellier, France). Then, I obtained a TMR-Marie Curie Research Training Grant to do my PhD at the CNRS-Université de Perpignan, (France) and I became Doctor in July 2002. After a period of post-doc at the Molecular Department at CID-CSIC (Barcelona) with a grant associated to and European project, in 2003, I was granted with a “Ramon y Cajal” contract (agriculture section) and I joined CRAG. Since then, I started to stablish my own research group and I started to supervise master and PhD students as well as several postdoctoral researchers. Although my main job is as permanent researcher at CRAG, I am also currently Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry of the Faculty of Bioscience at the UAB to give courses of Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. In addition, I also participate in the coordination and teaching in the CRAG-UAB-UB interuniversity master “Plant Biology, Genomics and Biotechnology”.

The main interests of my scientific work has been devoted to study how maize is able to synthesize the lignin polymer. Maize is one of the major crops worldwide and has been predominantly used as a forage crop due to its high nutritional value. In recent years, to substitute the contaminant fossil fuels, maize has been also used as source for the production of bioethanol. Initially, bioethanol has been produced from sugars accumulated in the seeds (first generation biofuel), directly competing with fields dedicated to food and feed. A solution to avoid this contest is the use of the maize stover (lignocellulosic biomass) but its huge amount of cellulose is nowadays discarded due to its interaction with the lignin polymer. These interactions imply that an important percentage of these polysaccharides are not digested by ruminants or extracted for the production of cellulosic bioethanol (secondary generation biofuel), thus, reducing the nutritional and energetic values of this biomass. Our main interests are addressed to understand how the modification of lignin genes affects the content and composition of the lignin and polysaccharides polymers within the maize cell walls. During the last years we have worked with maize mutants, transgenic and different inbred lines. This knowledge is essential for further undertaking new biotechnological approaches leading to new maize lines with improved nutritional and energetic values of the lignocellulosic biomass, thus making its high polysaccharides content available for these industrial proposes. During this time, I have been Principal Investigator of several research projects (national and European), and I have published more than twenty papers in peer-reviewed (first quartile) journals.