María Ángeles Pedreño holds a degree in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Science. She completed a postdoctoral stay (1989–1990) in the laboratory of Prof. J.C. Pech, in the Plant Biotechnology Department of the Agricultural School of Toulouse (ENSAT). In 1993, she had a position as Lecturer in Plant Physiology in the Department of Plant Biology, University of Murcia. In 2006, she became a Full Professor of Plant Physiology at the same university. Nowadays, she leads a research Group and a knowledge transfer group (www.inbioveg.es) at the University of Murcia and she is an Academic numerary of the Academy of Sciences of the Region of Murcia. She was awarded the European Young Investigator Award in Plant Physiology by the FESPP (1994) and also received the first Award for Applied Research in a Private Company by CEEIM (2009) by the Lavoisier Foundation (2013) and by the University of Murcia (2017, Award for the transfer of knowledge to private companies). She has participated in numerous scientific and organized committees of national and international meetings related to Plant Physiology and Biotechnology. She was and is at the present time an active member and MC representative in different COST-Action (FA1006, CA22157, and CA22134). She has more than 140 scientific publications, in collaboration with national and international researchers, and she led and participated in numerous national and regional projects, as well as research contracts with private companies.
Lorena Almagro holds a degree in Biology (2006) and a Ph.D. in Biology (2011) from the University of Murcia. She completed a post-doctoral stay (2013–2014) in the laboratory of Dr. Mariana Sottomayor at the Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology (IBMC, Porto). After that, she was a post-doc researcher in the group headed by Professor Maria Angeles Pedreño in the Department of Plant Biology, University of Murcia, and now she has a permanent position as Professor in Plant Physiology in the Department of Plant Biology, University of Murcia. She received an Extraordinary Ph.D. Award (2013, University of Murcia) and also received the first Award for Applied Research in a Private Company (Viveros Bermejo) by CEEIM (2009) and also by the University of Murcia (2017, Award for the transfer of knowledge to private companies). She has participated in scientific and organizer committees of national and international meetings related to Plant Physiology. She was also an active member of the Management Committee of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST-Action FA1006). Her research lines have been developed in the field of Plant Physiology and Biotechnology, and her work is now focused on the production, identification, and characterization of bioactive compounds and extracellular proteins derived from plant cell cultures under elicitation and in the elicitation mechanism by using genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic approaches.
