The main lines of research presently pursued by the Chemistry of Cement Group can be summarised as follows. Portland cement: concrete admixtures; alkaline cements and concretes (development of new binders); durability studies on portland and alkaline cements; conservation of the historic and cultural heritage (mechanisms and effects of decay, conservation products). The group’s engagement in competitive research projects and its close ties to the industry enable it to undertake industrial developments, conduct pilot tests and transfer knowledge to the private sector.

Proposal and evaluation of building systems, facilities and habitability conditions in building

The Research Group is working since 2000 under two Principal Researchers (Moisés Frías y M. Isabel Sánchez de Rojas) although, considering the requirements of this application, the responsibility has been assigned for alternating periods. The main activities developed by this research group are: 1. Recycling of materials, searching for adequate applications taking into account their characteristics, 2. Valorization of by-products in new and innovative materials and 3.

Our work is aimed at identifying and characterizing the global regulatory networks that allow bacteria to modulate the expression of their genes in response to physiological and environmental signals, thereby helping to coordinate the metabolism of the cell. We seek to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying these regulatory processes.

Our group is interested in deciphering at a molecular and cellular level the mechanisms involved in infectious processes caused by intracellular bacterial pathogens as Salmonella enterica and Listeria monocytogenes. We put special emphasis in the study of non-productive infection models in which both the pathogen and the host coexist. These models can provide insights into teh basis of asymptomatic or peristent infections as well as chronic pathologies linked to microbial infections.

Nosocomial infections due to opportunistic pathogens are an important health problem. In our laboratory we are using Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia as models to study the mechanisms underlying the pathology caused by organisms remains. Our research is aimed at understanding the biology of the opportunistic pathogens, especially the regulatory networks that connect their resistance to antibiotics and their virulence . We are currently addressing this problem studying insertion mutants in P.

Our research is aimed to engineer E. coli bacteria for biomedical applications, including the selection of small recombinant antibodies and the design of bacteria for diagnostic and therapeutic use in vivo. We study protein secretion systems found in pathogenic E. coli strains and engineer them to develop protein nanomachines that can be applied for selection of recombinant antibodies and the delivery of therapeutic proteins by non-pathogenic E. coli strains. Among the recombinant antibodies, we employ single-domain antibodies (sdAbs) or nanobodies.

The goals of the research group are to characterize the role of the repair (which are required for error-free DNA repair), and genetic recombination functions (which are required to adquire genetic material through horizontal gene transfer); and their contribution to chromosomal segregation. We are studying these function that are essential to promote genetic stability and the relationship among them and the role that they play in the reversion of the resistance and/or persistence to antibiotics in bacteria of the Firmicutes phylum.

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.

To describe the rules of assembly of microbial communities. To achieve predictive capacity on the function of such communities, given their composition. This will allow determination of the conditions that favor particular combinations of species able to fulfill specific goals in biotechnological, clinical, and ecological scenarios.