Baltasar Escriche

Baltasar Escriche is Professor of Genetics at the University of Valencia (Spain) and, currently, serve as Director of the Master in Research in Genetics, and Molecular and Cellular Biology of the Faculty of Biology. He studied Biology at U. of Valencia and completed his postdoctoral work at the University of Limburg (Belgium) funded with a European Union grant. He obtained a tenure track at the U. of Valencia funded with the prestigious “Ramon y Cajal” Spanish program in 2002. He has worked on different aspects of Bacillus thuringiensis toxins discovering, production and application from his Ph. D. in 1990 because its relevance as environmentally friendly pesticide. It is worthily to remark his studies on Cry proteins binding sites and insect resistance. New topics to be developed are related with non-conventional Bt proteins and the effects of Bt proteins on nematodes. He is especially interested in developing countries, in fact he was involved in a collaboration with several African research groups to control sweet potato pests funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Now, he is leading competitive research projects funded by Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and the Europan Union.