P12 (CBGP-UPM, Spain): Isabel Allona Alberich, Dr email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Born January 6th 1961. Madrid, Spain
Current Position: Professor in the Biotechnology Department of the Polytechnic University of Madrid and Team leader at the Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics CBGP-UPM
Centro de Biotecnología y Genómica de Plantas, U.P.M. , Parque Científico y Tecnológico de la U.P.M., Campus de Montegancedo, 28223 Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain-Tel: 34 91 3364543-6408 Fax: 34 91 7157721
Academic Qualifications: Forestry Engineer, 1896; PhD Thesis in Forest Biotechnology, Jul 1991
Appointments: March 95 to March 98, Fulbright Postdoctoral fellowship at the Forest Biotechnology Group (NCSU, USA)
Research Projects: Isabel Allona (I.A.) research group is involved in the study of the molecular basis of cold acclimation and winter dormancy in woody plants, mainly Chestnut and Poplar. Dormancy is an adaptative mechanism that allows woody plants to survive at low winter temperatures. It is characterized by a stop of the growth from initial autumn until starting of spring, and it is accompanied by an aclimatation process to the cold. Dormancy determines in this way the developmental period of the tree that is going to determine both productivity and quality of the wood. IA has been involved in 13 National and International projects, 3 as PI, the current AGL2008-00168: Genes involved in the induction and maintenance of winter dormancy in woody plants. She is the author of 18 papers in SCI-indexed journals, two of them in the Procceedings of the National Academy of Sciences EEUU. IA has supervised 3 PhD theses. IA has been involved, in the past, in genomic studies on wood formation in Pinus taeda (Allona et al. 1998). She is the coordinator of the Spanish Forest genomics Network and reviewer of international journals included in the JCI.
List of publications relevant to the proposal
López-Matas M-A, Núñez P, Soto A, Allona I, Casado R, Collada C,Guevara M-A, Aragoncillo C and Gomez L. (2004) “Protein Cryoprotective Activity of a Cytosolic Small Heat-Shock Protein that Accumulates Constitutively in Chestnut Stems and is Up-Regulated by Low and High Temperatures” Plant Physiology 134: 1708-1717
Ramos A, Pérez-Solís E, Ibáñez C, Casado R, Collada C, Gómez L, Aragoncillo C, Allona I (2005) “Winter disruption of the circadian clock in chestnut” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102(19): 7037-7042
Gómez L, Allona I, Ramos A, Núñez P, Ibañez C, Casado R and Aragoncillo C. (2005) “Molecular responses to thermal stress in woody plants” Investigación Agraria: Sistemas y Recursos Forestales 14:307-317
Allona I, Ramos A, Ibañez C, Contreras A, Casado R, Aragoncillo C. (2008) “Molecular control of winter dormancy establishment in trees” Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research 6, 201-210
Ibañez C, Ramos A, Acebo P, Contreras A, Casado R, Allona I*, Aragoncillo C (2008) “Overall alteration of circadian clock gene expression in the chestnut cold response” PLoS ONE 3(10):e3567. Epub 2008 Oct 29
