María Carmen Collado has recently gained an ERC Starting Grant for her proposal entitled The Power of Maternal Microbes on Infant Health (MAMI). More information on this Grant may be seen (in Spanish) at: http://www.dicv.csic.es/arxius/17-12-2014{987377834475827bd293c9570e6e34e1fd3bfe2c9e167eb93fc77b9654f442d6}20NP{987377834475827bd293c9570e6e34e1fd3bfe2c9e167eb93fc77b9654f442d6}20IATA{987377834475827bd293c9570e6e34e1fd3bfe2c9e167eb93fc77b9654f442d6}20ERC{987377834475827bd293c9570e6e34e1fd3bfe2c9e167eb93fc77b9654f442d6}20Starting{987377834475827bd293c9570e6e34e1fd3bfe2c9e167eb93fc77b9654f442d6}20Grant3.pdf
María Carmen Collado has an Engineer’s degree in Agronomical Sciences (Speciality: Food Sciences& Technology) in 2001, and BsC in Food Science and Technology in 2002 in Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), Valencia, Spain. She carried out PhD studies (2001-2005) at Dept. Biotechnology, Microbiology area in UPV (Spain), funded by a F.P.U. grant from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Spanish Government. During her PhD studies, the candidate experienced short-term research visits to the Functional Foods Forum, University of Turku, Finland, and also at the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Science (IATA-CSIC). In 2005, her PhD thesis was awarded with the highest qualifications and she obtained the PhD extraordinary award from Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV). During the postdoctoral period, she completed her research with appointments on national and international research centres by official and competitive scholarships and grants in Functional Food Forum, University of Turku, Finland (2005-2007), and the Department of Nutrition, Bromatology and Food Technology, University Complutense of Madrid, Spain (2007). Last years, she got a junior research I3P-postdoctoral contract (3-years from) from CSIC and senior research “Ramon y Cajal Program” contract RYC-2010-05614 (5-years) from Spanish Government to work in IATA-CSIC. In 2011, she got the permanent position as Researcher in CSIC and she is working on Dept. Biotechnology, Unit of Probiotics at IATA-CSIC, Valencia. Her work has been recently awarded with an ERC-Starting grant 2014 in the area of Life Sciences, panel LS9-Applied Biotechnology and Non-medical Sciences. This grant represents the first Spanish ERC grant in food science.Her research work is multidisciplinary and includes microbiology, food science and nutrition areas. Her main research areas are probiotics, microbiota and health and nutrition. Her research experience are basic research on molecular analysis and evaluation of health effects of beneficial bacteria and probiotics, the microbial-host interactions, microbiome and its role in human health and diseases and the influence of diet (lactation) and other factors.