Dr. José M. Estevez

Dr. José M. Estevez is a Full Professor at UNAB (Chile) and Principal at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) Argentina. He is a graduate of the Bachelor of Biological Sciences with an orientation in Botany from the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of La Plata (UNLP). In 2004 he obtained the title of Doctor in Biological Sciences from the Faculty of Exact Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). In the period 2005-2008, he developed as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Laboratory of Dr. Chris Somerville at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University, USA and at UC Berkeley, USA. From 2009 to May 2015 he directed the group of Molecular Bases of Plant Development at IFIBYNE (CONICET) and since June 2015 he has transferred his research group to the Leloir Institute Foundation (FIL)-IBBA. He is currently the head of the laboratory at the UNAB Center for Plant Biotechnology (CBV), the Director of the Millennium Nucleus for the Development of Super Adaptable Plants (MN-SAP), and part of the Millennium Institute for Integrative Biology (iBIO).

I want to understand the molecular basis of cell size regulation in plant cells in plants: using root hairs of Arabidopsis thaliana as single cell models. Root hairs are single plant cells that play crucial roles in the survival of plants in the acquisition of nutrients and water. A better understanding of the impact of root hair cell development and the nutrient uptake as well as root anchoring in the soils when nutrients are one of the most important limiting factors to improve seeds and fruits productivity. This knowledge obtained will be applied to improve the nutrient uptake and water absorption on important agricultural plants like maize, wheat, soybean, tomato, etc.

ORCID 0000-0001-6332-7738