Our research interests are Genome Biology, DNA replication, transcription and Epigenetics. We focus our investigation in trying to understand how chromatin structure modulates the expression and maintenance of the information encoded in eukaryotic genomes, and how these processes take place within the context of a highly complex and compacted genomic chromatin environment. This knowledge is of fundamental importance to understand the complex role of chromatin in regulating the versatility and stability of our genome both in physiological and pathological conditions.

Our group is interested in understanding how eukaryotic cells maintain genome stability during chromosome replication, especially under conditions that cause DNA damage or replicative stress

Structural Bioinformatics: Analysis and prediction of conformation changes in proteins with the torsional elastic network model. Changes of structure and function in the evolution of proteins. Prediction of thermodynamic stability of proteins and models of protein evolution with selection on unfolding and misfolding stability. Evolutionary analysis of structural disorder in proteomes. Theoretical ecology: Dynamics of ecological systems with mutualism and competition. Detection of ecological interactions between bacteria from ecological samples.

Filamentous, heterocyst-forming cyanobacteria are multicellular organisms in which the organismic unit is a chain of cells. Growth of these organisms depends on the metabolic activity of two cell types: the vegetative cells that perform oxygenic photosynthesis fixing carbon dioxide and the heterocysts that fix atmospheric nitrogen. By virtue of these activities, the cyanobacteria make an important contribution to the primary productivity of our planet.

The research group “Biotechnology of Microalgae” has focused its research activity in recent years on the photosynthetic production by microalgae of different compounds of commercial, industrial and energetic interest, such as carotenoids phycobiliproteins, lipids, alcohols or polyphosphate inositols. Based on the knowledge of organisms, the involved processes and culture systems, is intended to take advantage of the photosynthetic capacity of them to generate value products, while it helps to remove CO2 from industrial processes.

Our group studies the regulation of the structure and function of Arabidopsis thaliana telomeres and is integrated since it started by Dr. Miguel Ángel Vega Palas and by María Isabel Vaquero de Sedas, who has a bachelor degree in Biology. In 2021 we got a Spanish grant that included three people: María Isabel Vaquero de Sedas, María Dolores Cubiles de la Vega, Full Professor of Statistics at the University of Seville and Doctor in Informatics, and myself, Miguel Ángel Vega.

The research group, founded in 1989, is composed, among others, by 6 permanent staff members. Carries out highly innovative, multidisciplinary, and cutting-edge research in the field of Medical Chemistry.

Group of reference and pioneering in Spain in peptidomimetics. Our research requires coordinated use of molecular modeling, synthetic methodologies in solution and solid-phase (peptides/small molecules) and biological evaluation. Experience in enzymatic inhibitors, mimetics of analgesic and antitumor peptides, and of neuropeptides. Focused currently in the modulation of protein-protein modulators of therapeutic interest and of different ion channels and associated proteins (for new analgesic and cardiovascular).

The major interest of the group is to understand the bacterial responses to stress. We specifically study hypermutation and hyperrecombination as bacterial “strategies” to speed adaptation to environmental stresses. One of the models used here is antibiotic stress and the development of antibiotic resistance. Our work is focused on both stable and inducible hypermutation/hyperrecombination in E. coli, P. aeruginosa and M. smegmatis/tuberculosis.