Alex Cantó-Pastor, Ph.D.

Alex Cantó-Pastor will be appointed as an Assistant Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology on January 1, 2025. He obtained his B.Sc. in Biotechnology at Universitat Politècnica de València. He then received his Ph.D. in Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge, working in Prof. David Baulcombe’s lab. There he worked the regulation plant disease resistance genes by small RNAs. Most recently, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California, Davis, in the laboratory of Prof. Siobhan Brady. While at UC Davis, he studied cell type specific regulatory networks in plant development, investigating root cell type differentiation. His current research focuses on how plants let some beneficial soil microbes into their roots while keeping pathogens at bay. His lab combines computational and molecular approaches to identify key genes in plant-microbe interactions, and manipulate these genes to enhance the benefits of such relationships. The goal of this work is to provide insight and tools that tackle the global challenges of food security and sustainable agricultural production.