Reproductive Physiology and Environmental Epigenetics

The Reproductive Physiology and Environmental Epigenetics group includes the Group of Biology of Reproduction (GBR), established in 1997 and led by Francesc Piferrer, and the group of Molecular Endocrinology of Spermatogenesis (MES), established in 2022 and led by François Chauvigné. Our main goal is to do research on the reproductive physiology of fishes, focusing on sex determination and differentiation, and the regulation of sperm production and male function. We aim to understand both the internal and the environmental influences on these key processes for species survival. We focus on species important for aquaculture and use a multidisciplinary approach, including classic physiology and endocrinology but also modern cell and molecular biology, genomic, epigenomic and transcriptomic approaches. The group has a strong international projection and has several publications in high impact journals such as Nature Communications, PNAS, PLoS Genetics and Molecular Biology and Evolution.