Grapevine: From Origin to the Vineyard

Paula Martins-Lopes, is an Associated Professor of Biotechnology and Comparative Molecular Genetics at the Department of Genetics and Biotechnology, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD), Portugal. Paula has a B.Sc. in Agriculture Engineering (1996), a M.Sc. in Genetic Resources and Plant and Forestry Breeding (1999), a Ph.D. in Genetics (2006) and Habilitation in Comparative Molecular Genetics (2019) from UTAD. The M.Sc. and Ph.D. research projects were performed in collaboration with the Cereals Department of the Cambridge Lab, John Innes Centre, Norwich, U.K. She is the Coordinator of the Research Polo of Biosystems & Integrative Sciences Institute (BioISI-UTAD), where she heads the DNA& RNA Sensing Lab, focusing on research related to food authenticity and safety (mainly dedicated to wine, olive oil and honey) strategies, on crop biotic stresses (e.g. Grape Trunk Diseases, Colletotrichum acutatum), studying the interaction host-pathogen and developing early diseases detection methods, and on genetic biodiversity studies. Has experience in several technologies associated to molecular biology, biosensing platforms and plant and animal cell culture and an international reputation in the authenticity of food product research. The most novel contributions to the field of food authenticity have been associated to the definition of multiple strategies to reduce DNA isolation protocols from complex food matrices and the development of PCR and DNA-Biosensing platforms suitable for the detection of specific targeted sequences. She has extended her technological development to fungus detection in food and plant samples, to SARS-CoV2 detection and to cancer-related biomarkers. As a result of the innovative technologies developed, she has registered several patents: one (national and international) related to a DNA extraction protocol from wine samples and three patents (national and international) related to different biosensing platforms. Her work has been granted several awards, amongst them: 1st place in the National Commission of the International Organization of Vine and Wine (CNOIV) innovation award (2018); 1st CNOIV Oenology prize (2020); 1st place of the MSc degree thesis in the 13rd Edition of the Fraunofer Challenge (supervision - 2022) and, 1st place in the 10th Edition of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award of the “Caixa de Crédito Agrícola (2023). During the pandemic she was Co-director of the UTAD COVID-19 Testing Center (2020-2022) and is Co-founder of the Genetics4U lab. She acts regularly as reviewer for multiple international scientific journals, funding agencies, and award committees.