Mariana Sottomayor

I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biology from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP), and I joined CIBIO-InBIO in 2015. 

I have been working most of my research life with the medicinal plant Catharanthus roseus (Madagascar periwinkle), which is the source of important anticancer alkaloids and a model for the study of plant specialized metabolism. I have been involved in the biochemical and molecular characterization of important components of the C. roseus alkaloid pathway, as well as in the implementation of several omic strategies to uncover untapped biosynthetic, transport and regulatory genes of the pathway. 

I am also participating in projects aimed at the genomic characterization of the biodiversity of Portuguese grapevine varieties, of coffee plant varieties from the Centro de Investigação das Ferrugens do Cafeeiro (CIFC), and of Nepalese Amaranths (golden crop). 

More recently, I have become committed to the conservation of plant species from Portugal native forests with a special focus in the menaced dwarf oak Quercus lusitanica.