Pollen biotechnology of crop plants

The agriculture of the 21st century faces, among other challenges, the demand for global food security, the increase of world population and the climate change. Therefore, it is required more efficient and faster methods to develop new crop varieties, with higher yields and more resilient/adapted to environmental changes. The technologies of cell reprogramming, regeneration and in vitro propagation of selected plants are crucial in improvement and innovation programs of agrobiotechnological and nursery companies. Our group has been studying, for a long time, the regulatory, cellular and molecular mechanisms that control reprogramming, totipotency and embryogenesis, induced by stress, mainly in microspore embryogenesis (to produce double-haploids for accelerating breeding), but also in somatic embryogenesis (for clonal propagation), through multidisciplinary approaches, in agricultural and forest species.