Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

The Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) is the largest public multidisciplinary research organization in Spain. CSIC has 135 institutes distributed throughout Spain, including 51 Joint Research Units with universities. CSIC has considerable experience in both participating and managing Research and Technological Development projects. Most of the research activities of the project are carried out at the “Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas” (IBMCP).

Prof. Antonio Granell is in charge of the scientific coordination of the TRADITOM project and will lead the IBMCP team. He is a research professor of the National Research Council of Spain and group leader of the Plant Genomics and Biotechnology Lab (PGB). He has established an international scientific career and his main research interest concerns fruit quality using tomato as model system. Prof. Granell has led the Spanish contribution to the Tomato Genome Sequencing project and coordinated several other large consortia (ESPSOL, CALITOM). The PGB group has participated in EUSOL (FP7) and ESPSOL projects which worked on the genomic characterization of Solanaceae plants and other horticultural crops.

Antonio Monforte is a senior researcher at IBMCP with an MSc in Biology and a PhD in Genetics from the University of Valencia. He has several years of research and teaching experience and has been involved in a number of national and international initiatives. At IBMCP, he combines both melon and tomato breeding projects.

Mari Luz Lopez is a historian and documentation expert with a main interest in the introduction of medicinal and food plants from the Americas into Europe during the XVI-XVII. She will research and provide TRADITOM with science-based information of the introduction of tomato in Europe and its first uses as food.

Within TRADITOM, the group´s resources and expertise will be used to identify volatiles associated with the quality in traditional tomatoes and traditional cultivation methods.