Dr MARTIN DARINO

BIOGRAPHY

Martin is a molecular plant pathologist. His research is focused in understanding the pathogen strategies that promote virulence. He is working with different Fusarium graminearum secreted proteins to understand their role during pathogen infection. To characterize their mode of action, he uses a wide array of cell and molecular biology techniques such as confocal microscopy, protein expression in heterologous system, co-immunoprecipitation, and omics techniques. In addition, he performs targeted gene deletions and integrations in Fusarium to identify proteins critical for virulence. He is also interested in developing genetic and molecular tools to improve the research work in different fusarium species. In the past, he worked with Ustilago maydis, a fungal pathogen from maize. During that work, he studied different effectors proteins involved in the manipulation of an important plant transcriptional co-repressor.