The interest of the group focuses on the identification of molecular mechanisms that allow the establishment of bacterial infections in plants. We investigate several aspects related to bacterial life on surfaces using the Sinorhizobium meliloti-Medicago sativa interaction as a model system and a multidisciplinary approach that involves the use of bacterial genetics and Omics technologies.

The work of our laboratory focuses on the study of the protein structure-function relationship of a wide variety of enzymes of industrial interest. We try to obtain enzymes with improved properties combining experimental approaches of rational design and directed evolution.

The Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate group (AC2) is a newly created research group within CSIC¿s Institute of Physical Chemistry Rocasolano (IQFR). The group initiated its research activities in Augoust 2009 in Toledo as the former Laboratory for Atmospheric and Climate Science, since December 2012 AC2 is based at IQFR in Madrid. AC2 research efforts are directed at studying the role of atmospheric composition and chemistry in the climate system.

The research group focuses on the optimization and biotechnological production of botanical and fungal biopesticides. This research is based on the growing need for new biopesticides motivated by food security requirements increasingly restrictive in the EU. We produce and optimize biopesticides by selectively screening plants, fungal endophytes associated with plants of interest and agricultural waste in order to improve our database and library of plant, fungal and waste based extracts of potential use in crop protection and pest control.

The group has a long experience on issues such as:      * Development of ultrasonic systems (transducers, electronics and programming).      * Propagation of elastic waves in solids and liquids, homogeneous and heterogeneous media.      * Interaction of mechanical waves with microbiological and biochemical processes and systems.      * Calibration of ultrasound medical equipment. These topics find their application in various fields such as biotechnology, biomedicine, food industry, aeronautics, material characterization and non-destructive evaluation. Research lines: Instrumentation for

The group aims to contribute to energy-related societal challenges by improving electrochemical storage technologies based on its expertise on material science. The team works on the development of materials with controlled microstructure and surface chemistry for use as electrodes, as well as on the understanding of chemical and transport phenomena in the whole device.

Global change is a combination of rapid human-induced environmental changes that occur at the global scale and impact on human societies and ecological systems. Understanding and predicting the impacts of the different components of global change such as climate or land use change and the interactions between them on ecological communities is currently one of the major challenges to science.

The group is formed by four researchers from CSIC. The group leads on a larger group that includes personnel from CREAF at a full time forming a single group including 45 people working as researchers, technicians, pre- and postdocs with intereses that embrace global and functional ecology, global change, climate change, volatile organic compounds, biosphere-atmosphere interactions and remote sensing.

To study the molecular and genetic mechanisms that control the development of reproductive organs and fruit-set mediated by gibberellins and other plant hormones. We are interested in studying the control of the initiation and development of ovules and seeds in model systems and in species of agronomic interest.