CV – Margarida Oliveira
MARIA MARGARIDA M. G. OLIVEIRA (born in Lisboa, 24 March 1960) has Diploma in Biology, PhD
in Plant Biotechnology (1993) by Faculdade Ciências of Universidade de Lisboa (FCUL) and is
“Professor Agregado” since 2001. Since 2008 she is Associate Professor with “Agregação”, at Instituto de
Tecnologia Química e Biológica of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (ITQB-UNL), where she directs the Genomics
of Plant Stress unit (GPlantS) that currently integrates two labs. Since 2008 she is Director of the Plant
Genomics Infrastructural area of Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Tecnológica (IBET) and since
March 2011 she is Vice-Director of ITQB.
For 23 years she was Professor at FCUL (Dept. Plant Biology) where she was teaching several disciplines for
Diploma and Master degress in the areas of Cell Biology, Biology of Plant Secretion and Plant Biotechnology.
She has been supervising numerous students, from Diploma to Post-Doctoral studies (17 PhD students have
graduated and in four she was co-supervisor) and she is supervising or co-supervising another 10 (three of which
are now finishing and four have just started).
Since 2006, she is Associate Editor of the Springer journal "Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture", and reviewer for
several international journals. She has published 94 original papers in international refereed journals, 35 papers as
conference proceedings, 7 book chapters and edited 4 books.
She is President of the Portuguese Society of Plant Physiology (since 2008).
She was President of the specialized Technical Comission on GMOs of the National Authority of Food, Feed and
Economical Safety (2008-2013), and since 2014 she is Member of the Thematic Panel “Plant Health and GMOs”
(nominated in June 2014, following ASAE restructuring).
Since October 2010, she is President of the General Assembly of the Operational and Technological Rice Center
(COTArroz, in Salvaterra de Magos).
She is particularly interested in the molecular study of the mechanisms that regulate plant development and plant
adaptation to the environment, and in the improvement of plants with national interest.
She has been organizing several national and international meetings, congresses and seminars, as well as courses
and training periods for national and foreign students. She has been invited to present lectures at national and
international level in specialized congresses and in national meetings for science divulgation.
She has been involved in (or coordinated) several projects funded by national and international projects and is
deeply committed to the national initiative for sequencing the Cork Oak genome (following the previous CorkOak
ESTs Consortium).
GPlantS Goals Plant growth and yield depend much on the environment, which plays a critical role in the expression of
plant genetic potential. Environmental (abiotic) stress is a major cause of losses in plant productivity
worldwide, with resulting economical instability. Our team is particularly interested in studying plant
productivity and the environmental impact on plant growth regulation and on the adaptation strategies
that permit some plants to survive the stress. Our main goal is to identify genes and describe pathways
that may help to generate plants better adapted to limiting environmental conditions. The plants under
study at GPlantS Lab are: rice (Oryza sativa), cork oak (Quercus suber), maize (Zea mays), purging nut
(Jatropha curcas), and Arabidopsis.
PUBLICATIONS (2013-2014):
ISI Journals
[83] SAPETA H, Costa JM, Lourenço T, Maroco J, van der Linde P, Oliveira MM (2013) Drought stress
response in Jatropha curcas: Growth and physiology. Environm. Exp. Bot. 85: 76-84
[84] NEGRÃO S, Almadanim MC, Pires IS, Abreu IA, Maroco J, Courtois B, Gregorio GB, McNally K,
Oliveira MM. (2013) New allelic variants found in key rice salt-tolerance genes: an association study.
Plant Biotechnology Journal ;11(1):87-100. doi: 10.1111/pbi.12010
[85] MENDES MD, Figueiredo AC, Oliveira MM, Trindade H. (2013) Essential oil production in shoot
cultures versus field-grown plants of Thymus caespititius. Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture
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113(2):341-351. DOI 10.1007/s11240-012-0276-9
[86] LOURENÇO T, Sapeta H, Figueiredo D, Rodrigues M, Cordeiro A, Abreu IA, Saibo N, Oliveira MM.
(2013) Isolation and characterization of rice (Oryza sativa L.) E3-ubiquitin ligase OsHOS1 gene in the
modulation of cold stress response. Plant Molecular Biology 83(4-5):351-363. DOI: 10.1007/s11103013-0092-6.
[87] ABREU I, Farinha AP, Negrão S, Gonçalves N, Fonseca C, Rodrigues M, Batista R, Saibo NJM,
Oliveira, MM (2013). Coping with abiotic stress: Proteome changes for crop improvement. Journal of
Proteomics 93:145-68. doi: 10.1016/j.jprot.2013.07.014.
[88] SERRA, TS, Figueiredo, DD, Cordeiro, AM, Almeida, DM, Lourenço, T, Abreu, IA, Sebastián, A,
Fernandes, L, Contreras-Moreira, B, Oliveira, MM, Saibo, NJM (2013) OsRMC, a negative regulator
of salt stress response in rice, is regulated by two AP2/ERF transcription factors. Plant Molecular
Biology 82:439-455. doi: 10.1007/s11103-013-0073-9
[89] PIRES IS, Negrao S, Pentony MM, Abreu IA, Oliveira MM, Purugganan M (2013) Different
evolutionary stories of two cation/proton exchanger gene families in plants. BMC Plant Biology 13:97
(12pages).
[90] FONSECA C, Planchon S, Pinheiro C, Renaut J, Ricardo CP, Oliveira MM, Batista R. (2014) Maize
IgE binding proteins-induced allergy: each plant a different reaction profile? Proteome Science
2014,12:17 DOI: 10.1186/1477-5956-12-17
[91] PEREIRA-LEAL J, Abreu IA, Alabaça CS, Almeida MH, Almeida P, Almeida T, Amorim MI, Araújo
S, Azevedo H, Badia A, Batista D, Bohn A, Capote T, Carrasquinho I, Chaves I, Coelho AC, Costa
MM, Costa R, Cravador A, Egas C, Faro C, Fortes M, Fortunato AS, Gaspar MJ, Gonçalves S, Graça J,
Horta M, Inácio V, Leitão JM , Neto TL, Marum L, Matos J, Mendonça D, Miguel A, Miguel CM,
Morais-Cecílio L, Neves I, Nóbrega F, Oliveira MM, Oliveira R, Pais MS, Paiva JP, Paulo OS,
Pinheiro M, Raimundo JP, Ramalho JC, Ribeiro AI, Ribeiro T, Rocheta M, Rodrigues AI, Rodrigues
JC, Saibo NJ, Santo TE, Santos AM, Sá-Pereira P, Sebastiana M, Simões F, Sobral RS, Tavares R,
Teixeira R, Varela C, Veloso MM, Ricardo CP (2014) A comprehensive assessment of the
transcriptome of cork oak (Quercus suber) through EST sequencing. BMC Genomics, 15: 371 (14
pages)
[92] MENDES MD, Barroso, JM, Oliveira MM, Trindade H (2014) Identification and characterization of a
second isogene encoding γ-terpinene synthase in Thymus caespititius. Journal of Plant Physiology
171(12): 1017–1027.
[93] MENDES MD, Figueiredo AC, Oliveira MM, Trindade H (2014) Influence of culture media and fungal
extracts on essential oils composition and on terpene synthase gene expression in Thymus caespititius.
Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture (PCTOC): Journal of Plant Biotechnology, 118: 457-469.
(DOI 10.1007/s11240-014-0498-0)
[94] FONSECA C, Planchon S, Serra T, Chander S, Saibo N, Renaut J, Oliveira MM, Batista R. In vitro
culture may be the major contributing factor for transgenic vs. non-transgenic proteomic plant
differences. Proteomics.2014 Oct 6. (1-11) doi: 10.1002/pmic.201400018. [Epub ahead of print] IF
(2013)= 3.973 Q1 (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology)
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