Dr Giuliano Sting Pechar

About

Dr. Giuliano Sting Pechar is a plant biotechnologist and molecular biologist with expertise in plant tissue culture, genetic transformation, genome editing and synthetic biology. He earned his PhD in in Plant Biology and Biotechnology from the University of Murcia in 2022, where he investigated the role of the melon eukaryotic translation initiation factor eIF4E in virus resistance and male sterility through the generation of virus-resistant melon genotypes by mutation of host factors towards loss of susceptibility.

From 2022 to 2024, he has been a Postdoctoral Research Associate at CEBAS-CSIC in Prof. Miguel Arandas’ group, working on the improvement of genome editing techniques for plants of the Cucurbitaceae and Solanaceae families. His research focused on developing a second in vitro melon tissue selection system based on glyphosate tolerance together with a tissue-specific Cas9 protein expression system.

Dr. Pechar has led and contributed to national and international projects funded by the Italian and Spanish governments, and by public and private foundations in different countries, including Germany and the UK, gaining extensive experience in interdisciplinary research and biotechnological development. His interests include the genetic engineering of plants for pathogen resistance and bioremediation of contaminated soils, the determination of volatile emission levels in virus-infected plants and the study of capsid-dependent protein synthesis mechanisms in plant viruses.

As part of the Elemental Project, he applies synthetic biology approaches to engineer plant-mediated metal solubilisation in the rhizosphere, aiming to enhance the natural capabilities of plants involved in metal recovery processes. These strategies include the engineering and genome editing of plant biosynthetic pathways in Arabidopsis to study metal solubilisation and uptake mechanisms, and the optimisation of Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation of high biomass plant species to be used in combined phytoremediation and phytomining strategies.