Patrícia Morais Fernandes

I’m a young biologist with a Master degree in Plant Biotechnology from University of Coimbra (Portugal). During my master thesis I worked in the field of plant biotechnology, namely in the optimization and molecular analysis of the somatic embryogenesis process in solanaceous species. This project included work in different fields such as plant in vitro culture, molecular biology, physiology and microscopy. Part of the developed work was presented as poster in the 3rd International Conference of the International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO) that took place in Vitoria (Spain), 2014.

After my Master's thesis, I transited to the industry sector by working as a researcher in the UC-InProPlant Association, where I performed protocol optimization for in vitro culture of several fruit and woody trees.

Nowadays, I am a research fellow in the project Proder 53593 "InovCast - Innovation in chestnut production chain: competitiveness and sustainability", at the Molecular Biology Laboratory of Forest Systems in INIAV IP.. This work is in the scope of the Castanea sativa (European chestnut) breeding program for the pathogen Phytophthora cinnamomi. My main work lines are 1) Controlled crosses between the susceptible (European) and resistant (Asian) chestnut species; 2) Mass production of P. cinnamomi resistant hybrids through in vitro culture; and 3) the understanding of the pathogens invasion pattern in the root system of Castanea spp. through histopathology. I also follow the genomic, phenomic and transcriptomic approaches performed in the scope of this project.

October 2016