Sara Franco Ortega

Sara holds a degree in Biotechnology at the University of León (Spain) and two Master’s Degrees, one in Advanced Microbiology (University of Barcelona) and another in Quality Management and Safety in the Food Industry (Madrid’s Institute of Training, Spain). She obtained her PhD in plant pathology at the University of Turin (Italy) in 2019, where she specialised in the development of new molecular techniques for the diagnosis of plant pests. She did her first postdoc at Newcastle University working on a project in partnership with Syngenta UK. This project led to new insights into the roles of enzymes involved in the detoxification of xenobiotics in wheat, where she looked into the molecular and biochemical mechanisms of herbicide-resistant weeds. Right now, Sara works as a postdoc at the University of York, focusing on the use of bacteriophages as biocontrol agents of the major plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum in the plant rhizosphere.