María del Mar graduated in Biotechnology from the Universitat Politècnica de València in 2019. She then completed a Master's Degree in Molecular Biology and Biomedicine at the University of Cantabria and the University of the Basque Country. In parallel, she obtained an Introduction to research scholarship for students (JAE Intro) in the Functional Plasmidomics group of the IBBTEC. In this group, she carried out her Master's Thesis supervised by Dr María del Pilar Garcillán Barcia.
After completing her Master's Degree, she is currently working on the study of type VI secretion systems encoded by plasmids and their interaction with genetic transfer.
Functional Plasmidomics
Research lines
Plasmids are genomes with a deep impact in microbial communities, a shared gene pool that allows bacteria to adapt to different environments. By using plasmid comparative genomics, we are identifying and studying key gene functions for cell-to-cell communication, as well as others linked to multirresistant bacteria outbreaks. Some of these functions are also harnessed to build synthetic gene circuits to perform distributed computation in bacterial populations.
Funding
- Research projects: Ayuda nueva incorporación CSIC (Ref. 201820I143). PI: M. Pilar Garcillán-Barcia
