Amparo Monfort is Research Scientist of IRTA, since 2002, working at Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics CSIC-IRTA-UAB-UB. She is a Biologist specialized in Biochemistry and PhD in Sciences, Plant Genetics. She has conducted postdoc research at the Molecular Biology Institute of Barcelona (IBMB–CSIC, 1992-2002). She has been awarded with the Doctor INIA fellowship (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation) and the Scientific Career Excellence by the I3 Evaluation Program (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation). Regarding her academic activities, she has taught at several universities: Universitat de Barcelona, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Mediterranian Agronomic Institute (Zaragoza, Spain and Hania, Grece), and the Neuchâtel University (Switzerland). Since 2003, she is IP of six Spanish National Projects and participate in seven International Projects. she has been supervisor of eight doctoral thesis and 14 Master thesis.
Her research now is focus in genomics, developing genetic markers linked to QTLs of health/nutritional traits for optimizing breeding programs and for producing fruits rich in health compounds. She develops this research line in berries (strawberry) and therapeutic plants (cannabis and opium poppy). Previous projects have developed genetic tools in cultivated strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) using as a model a diploid species (F. vesca). An exhaustive fruit nutritional quality characterization is being done in a Near Isogenic Line (NIL) collection in wild strawberry and in a F2 population of cultivated strawberry segregating for fruit quality parameters. She is developing a saturated map of SNPs using a NGS approach in F. x ananassa. Marker information and phenotypic data will be combined to detect QTLs for healthy compounds content in fruits, allowing the detection of markers suitable for marker assisted breeding (MAB).
