Montse Pagès (Biology)
Montse Pagès |
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Montse Pagès works in plant molecular biology research. She leads a group looking at abiotic stress in plants at the Molecular Biology Institute of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).
Montse studied biology at the Universitat de Barcelona and then moved to the Centro de Biologia Molecular (CBM) at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid where she obtained a PhD in 1976, studying the regulation of chromosomal transcription in Drosophila. By then she was married and already had two kids. In 1978, when her third child was born, Montse and her family moved to Barcelona. Looking for new challenges, Montse decided to change her research topic to chromatin structure and function as a postdoctoral research associate at the Institut de Biologia de Barcelona. In 1981, she moved as research associate to the Instituto de Quimica Bio-Organica(CSIC), where she was involved in a project on molecular and chromatographic studies on the neurobiology of Drosophila.
After four years, she changed from Drosophila to plant molecular genetics, focusing on understanding how plants respond and adapt to desiccation. Abiotic stress, such as drought, cold and salinity, are the most important factors limiting plant productivity in the world, resulting in the deterioration of large areas agricultural land. In 1988, Montse Pagès' group made a fundamental contribution to the understanding of stress tolerance in plants, describing abscisic acid (ABA) and water stress-induced genes in maize. The group expanded their research to include the identification of regulatory elements, transcription factors and signalling intermediates. These tools prompted successful transgenic approaches to increase plant tolerance to osmotic stress. Her current interest is to obtain plants which are better adapted to adverse environmental conditions. This is a major goal in molecular breeding programmes for drought, cold and salt resistance.
From 1992 to 2000, she was Chair of the Departamento de Genética Molecular. She has received several awards and was elected an EMBO member in 2000. She has served on committees and councils of a number of scientific organizations in Spain and abroad: Advisor Committee of CNEAI (Comision Nacional Evaluadora de la Actividad Investigadora (2003-2005), CSIC Advisor Committee for Molecular and Cellular Biology (2004-2008), the Life Sciences Working Group of ESA (1998 -2001), Human Frontiers Science Program (HFSP) Long-Term Fellowship (1998-2001), EMBO World Programme (2002-2004), and EMBO Long-Term Fellowships 2004-2007. She was President of the EUCARPIA: Maize and Sorghum (2003-2006) and has been Vice President of the Spanish Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SEBBM) since 2006.
Montse Pagès has published close to 100 articles in international peer-reviewed journals and chapters in several books. She regularly serves as a referee for several international journals and granting agencies. She has also served on the editorial board of several international journals, among them Planta and Molecular Plant.