Dr Beatriz Orosa

Chancellor's fellow

Contact details

Address

Street

University of Edinburgh
School of Biological Sciences
Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences

City
Edinburgh
Post code
EH9 3BF

Biography

Background

My scientific career started with a PhD at the University of Barcelona (Spain), where I studied the defence of Arabidopsis plants to fungal pathogens and acquired invaluable knowledge on plant pathogen interactions. During my PhD I also had the opportunity to work on human autoimmunity at the Institute of Health Research (Santiago de Compostela, Spain), focusing on deciphering the molecular signals that induce autoimmunity. Although my experience in the biomedical field was very rewarding, I have always been fascinated by the ability of plants to perceive, anticipate and swiftly respond to environmental changes and pathogens. Therefore, after my PhD, I moved to Prof Ari Sadanandom’s group (Durham University) to study how plants employ protein posttranslational modifications (PTMs) for fast and accurate regulation of stress responses. My four years in Durham led to a series of exciting discoveries; I revealed how PTMs play a key role in perceiving and responding to environmental stress, which has direct relevance to agritech approaches to boost the ability of crops to cope with a changing environment.

My increasing interest in PTMs led me to the University of Edinburgh to Prof Steven Spoel’s group, where I developed new proteomic tools to investigate for the first time how linkage-specific ubiquitin signalling orchestrates plant immunity. These preliminary findings and new methodologies underpin the next step in my career as Group Leader, developing my research ideas at the Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences.

  • [2021]                     Chancellor’s Fellow (Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences)
  • [2018-2021]          Postdoctoral research fellow (Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences)
  • [2013-2017]          Postdoctoral research fellow (Durham University) 
  • [2013]                     Plant Molecular Biology (University of Barcelona)

     

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

Always open to discuss opportunities in our research group.  The main criteria is to be nice and friendly. If you meet these criteria, please feel free to get in touch!

Research summary

I am currently studying the fundamental mechanisms underlying ubiquitin-mediated regulation of plant immunity, joining the two main themes of my career: plant-pathogen interactions and post-translational modifications.

The post-translational modifier ubiquitin plays vital roles in cell signalling and organismal responses to their environment. Ubiquitination is highly versatile, and also is an indispensable component of the plant immune system with a key role in modulating the stability of immune receptors and transcriptional regulators. Nonetheless, how ubiquitin contributes to the establishment of immunity in crops remains completely unknown. My group is focused on applying innovative approaches to decipher the ubiquitin code that plants use to modulate the immune response, and manipulate this system to block the pathogens suppression of host immune responses. My research is opening up new strategies for the development of crops with improved disease resistance.

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