Within the 2024 FORUM lecture series of the Instituto de Estudios Vigueses, presented on 15 February, a highlighted talk will take place tomorrow by our colleague María Saura Álvarez, researcher at the Aquatic Biotechnology Laboratory of IIM-CSIC.

The talk will address the role of modern aquaculture in the conservation of marine ecosystems and in the production of sustainable food for a growing world population. It will explain how genetic selection is producing species that are more resistant to disease and better adapted to the challenges of climate change, positioning aquaculture as a key tool for environmental and food sustainability.

This is a unique opportunity to learn first-hand about scientific advances in aquaculture and the importance of marine research for the future of our planet.

Do not miss this appointment with science and innovation in Vigo!

María Saura Álvarez

María Saura completed her doctoral thesis at the University of Vigo on Atlantic salmon conservation. She carried out her first postdoctoral work at ECIMAT, analysing the mechanisms responsible for parallel evolution in gastropods. In 2012, she received a Juan de la Cierva fellowship to join INIA-CSIC, where she collaborated on several projects based on -omics tools in aquaculture and livestock, including the European projects FISHBOOST and MedAID and the international 1000 Bull Genomes consortium. She completed postdoctoral stays at the Scottish Agricultural College (Edinburgh), The Roslin Institute (Edinburgh) and the Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Science (Sweden). She has participated in 17 research projects and served as principal investigator in two State R&D Plan projects and one CSIC project, focused on optimising conservation and selection programmes in sheep and Atlantic salmon using -omics methodologies. She collaborates with the SCOURGE coalition (COVID-19 Fund) as head of a subproject on COVID resistance using genomic tools. She has taught at the University of Vigo and as associate professor at the Complutense University of Madrid. She has taught in the Master’s in Zoology (UCM), Genomic Methods in Breeding and Management of Aquatic Living Resources (Technical University of Denmark) and Applied Blue Biotechnology (Catholic University of Valencia). She participated in the organisation of the CSIC Training Plan 2022 and 2023 (Genomics applied to animal production, metagenomic analysis and de novo assembly). She was deputy director of the Department of Genetic Improvement at INIA-CSIC (2020-23). She is a member of the Scientific Committee of ISAG (International Society for Animal Genetics) in the Aquaculture section (2019-present).