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Leandro Dias

POSITION 

Postdoctoral Fellow

DEGREE

PhD

EMAIL

OTHER

KiwiBol (current) | VINEPROTECT (current) | OmicBots (current)

Junior researcher in plant breeding at COMAV - Universitat Politècnica de València. Currently enjoying a Margarita Salas postdoctoral fellowship at IB2Lab - Faculty of Science of Porto University, on the application of microbe-derived peptides with antimicrobial activity against phytopathogens undermining tomato cultivation, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Universities and NextGenerationEU program (project entitled “AMP.FACTORIES: Bioactivity of antimicrobial peptides on Solanaceae pathogens and their synthesis in biofactories”). Fluent in Portuguese, Spanish and English has been developing activities in interdisciplinary teams dedicated to the breeding of Solanaceae crops, with particular interest in tomato and pepper, and taking advantage of the new generation of genetic and genomic tools. Examples of that are his collaborations on projects such as BRESOV, G2P-SOL and TRADITOM, funded by the Horizon2020 program. Since its arrival at IB2Lab has been involved in the prospecting of green-based solutions to mitigate the impacts of ESCA and climate change on Kiwifruit and vineyards in projects such as KiwiBol (FCUP team task leader) and VineProtect, funded by FCT and PRIMA, respectively. The candidate has strong experience in genetic resource characterization and selection of promising materials for improving the fruit quality, biotic and abiotic stresses tolerance, and yield. Being in a competitive and multidisciplinary environment, and frequent collaboration with other national and international researchers has stimulated his learning in different subjects linked to plant breeding, such as genetics, bioinformatics, horticulture, agronomy, microbiology, among others. As a result, he is the author of 16 articles, 2 book chapters, 3 magazine articles, and 21 conference communications. In the last years, he has regularly contributed as a reviewer and guest editor to scientific journals. He has directed several BSc and MSc works, and in 2022 he was granted funding for his first project as PI on the genetics of polyphenols biosynthesis in tomato plants.

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