Ana V. Lasa is graduate in Biotechnology by the Polytechnic University of Valencia (2013) and holds a Master’s degree in Research and Advances in Microbiology by the University of Granada (2014). She got the PhD in Fundamental and Systems Biology (University of Granada – Zaidín Experimental Station, CSIC) in 2019, which received the International Doctorate Accreditation due to her stay in the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Science (Prague, Czech Republic).

During the predoctoral stage, her research was focused on the characterization of prokaryotic communities associated with the roots of Quercus pyrenaica at genotypic, taxonomic, metabolic and enzymatic levels. Her research has been aimed at finding bacterial bioinoculants with which optimize forest restoration tasks in Sierra Nevada (Granada, Spain). Among her main findings, it stands out the isolation of five potential novel species belonging to genus Pseudomonas from the rhizosphere, some of which showed plant growth promotion capabilities.

Her postdoctoral stage at Zaidín Experimental Station is ongoing, and she is currently working on the improvement of the resilience of Mediterranean forest to global change through the management of microbial communities associated with roots of Pinus pinaster and Pinus sylvestris. She is expected to identify, fully characterize and study the ecology of those rhizospheric or root endophytic microorganisms potentially involved in pine decline resilience.