Our research focuses on the physiological and molecular responses of fruit trees to environmental signals. Plants have been increasingly exposed to new environmental conditions. The events of climatic accidents in the main productive areas of our country, including the warm winters and the events of frosts and sudden rains, have taken place affecting the regular production. We study the regulatory aspects of gene expression, specifically those involved in the epigenetic networks of DNA methylation and small non-coding RNAs, related to cold accumulation and latency release in sweet cherry fruit trees. We also study how environmental conditions modulate photosynthesis and the carbon partition in the tree, which affects flowering and, consequently, the production of fruit. To evaluate our objectives, we combine molecular biology tools and classical physiological/biochemical techniques to understand how the plant can detect and modulate environmental information.

Biography

Andrea Miyasaka Almeida is Assistant Professor at Universidad Mayor and part of the Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics since April 2018. Andrea is graduated in Biology at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP, Brazil), coursed her PhD in Molecular Biology in Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP, Brazil) and completed her theses in University of Liège, Belgium, studying how the energy dissipative mechanisms such as uncoupling protein and alternative oxidase affect tomato fruit ripening and quality. Andrea had a postdoctoral position in the International Plant Biotechnology Outreach (IPBO) at the University of Ghent, Belgium, where studied the molecular and physiological mechanisms of flooding avoidance and tolerance in rice. Back in Brazil Andréa got a position in Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV, Brazil) where she had studied the differential physiological and molecular responses of tropical rice cultivars to iron excess. In 2009, Andrea moved to Chile and started to work with fruit trees species such as peach, sweet cherry and grapevine in collaboration with the Chilean fruit industry. Andrea has been leading research in physiological and molecular aspects of sweet cherry chilling requirement and dormancy release and carbon partitioning in stone fruit trees.