Abstract:
Despite the massive amount of information gathered around the functions and mechanisms of Brassinosteroids (BRs) in plants, an important limitation persists in our knowledge of this signaling pathway: almost all we know comes from observations on the BRI1 receptor pathway, that is essential for growth and development, and for which mutants are highly pleiotropic and typically dwarf. 
Since the discovery of BRI1-like receptors (BRL1/3) twenty years ago1, the fundamental functions of BRI1-like receptors (BRL1/3) remain elusive, largely viewed as redundant with limited vascular expression and minimal mutant phenotypes. However, our lab has taken a novel perspective to explore the function of BRLs in Arabidopsis, to understand the inner working of this pathway and we have now deciphered the BRL3 pathway in Arabidopsis, including novel cell-specific components in the pathway essential to plant adaptation to elevated temperatures and drought resistance2-3. Our data not only change the paradigm for our present understanding of BR signaling in plants4, but also open new and exciting avenues for engineering climate resilient crops5. Our latest results and our effort for transferring those findings into agricultural value will be presented at the seminar.

Bio:
Ana I. Caño-Delgado is a Distinguished Investigator and founder of PLANeT BIOTECH the first spin off at the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG, Barcelona, Spain. She did a PhD in Biology at John Innes Centre (UK) and was a HFSPO Postdoctoral Fellow at Salk Institute (US). She is internationally recognized for publishing numerous high-impact scientific journals, has received awards in science and entrepreneurship and is an elected EMBO Member since 2016. She is considered one of the 500 most-influencing women in Spain. At CRAG, she leads the Brassinosteroid signaling group supported two consecutive times by the European Research Council (ERC) grants to engineering crops able to grow on severe drought. These achievements are the results of two decades of studies in plant steroid hormones, in which she pioneers the study of signaling mechanisms with cell-specificity. In the context of a climate emergency, her lab works for the translation of these results to crops, including social cereal Sorghum. In addition, Caño-Delgado is an engaged science communicator chasing two specific goals: encouraging women in science leadership and acceptance of genomic edition tools for sustainable agriculture.