CHARACTERIZATION OF GRAPEVINE DIVERSITY AND FUNCTIONAL INFERENCE OF BERRY COLOR AND AROMATIC TYPICITY USING WHOLE-GENOME SEQUENCING

STUDENT SEMINAR IN BIODIVERSITY AND EVOLUTION

Portugal is a hotspot for grapevine diversity, with hundreds of varieties that are currently under-characterized and under-valued. This diversity will be essential to introduce resilience in grapevine in the face of climate changes and new pathogen challenges. It also encloses a richness and distinctiveness that has an enormous market value potential. However, the full exploitation of this unique national grapevine diversity can only be achieved through a comprehensive and deep scientific knowledge. The main objective of my PhD work is to apply the unprecedented power of NGS and computational analysis, to sequence and characterize the full genome of Portuguese grapevine varieties (castas), and use an array of cutting-edge bioinformatic approaches.

Sara Freitas holds a BSc degree in Applied Biology and a Msc in Plant Molecular Biology, Biotechnology and Bioentrepreneurship, both at the University of Minho. Throughout more than three years she collaborated with the Functional Plant Biology Lab working with the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, performing the phenotypic, physiological, biochemical and molecular characterization of plants exposed to abiotic stress. She also did an internship at Bioinvitro , developing micropropagation of plant species with national economic interest. Currently, Sara is a PhD student enrolling in her second year of the BIODIV program, and she is working under the supervision of Dr. Herlânder Azevedo (CIBIO-InBIO/UP), Miguel Carneiro (CIBIO-InBIO) and Dr. Mariana Sottomayor (CIBIO-InBIO/UP), as part of PLANTBIO research group, exploring methods to characterize grapevine diversity.

[Host: Herlânder Azevedo, Plant Biology]

Image credits: Herlânder Azevedo