BIO188 GROUP (APPLICATION OF EXOPOLYSACCHARIDES AND OTHER TRAITS OF HALOTOLERAND AND HALOPHILIC BACTERIA). Biomedical Research Center (CIBM) Organisation / Company University of Granada Department MICROBIOLOGY Laboratory BIO188 GROUP (APPLICATION OF EXOPOLYSACCHARIDES AND OTHER TRAITS OF HALOTOLERAND AND HALOPHILIC BACTERIA).

Biomedical Research Center (CIBM) Is the Hosting related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?

No Description MSCA

- PF: Joint application at the University of Granada.

Department ofMICROBIOLOGY.

Professor MARTA TORRES BÉJAR, from the Department ofMICROBIOLOGY at the University of Granada, welcomes postdoctoral candidatesinterested inapplying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF)in 2026 at this University.
Please note that applicants must comply with the Mobility Rule (for more information about the 2026 call, please consult this link ).

Brief description of the institution: The University of Granada (UGR), founded in 1531, is one of the largest and most important universities in Spain. With more than 57,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students and almost 7,000 members of staff, the UGR offers 97 undergraduate degrees, 157 master’s degrees (7 of which are double degrees) and 28 doctoral programmes via its 124 departments and nearly 50 centers.

Accordingly, the UGR offers one of the most extensive and diverse ranges of higher education programmes in Spain.

The UGR has been awarded with the "Human Resources Excellence in Research (HRS4R)", which reflectsthe institution’s commitment to continuously improve its human resource policies in line with the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The UGR is also internationally renowned for its excellence in diverse research fields and ranked among the top Spanish universities in a variety of ranking criteria, such as national R&D; projects, fellowships awarded, publications, and international funding.

The UGR is one of the few Spanish Universities listed in the Shanghai Top 500 ranking

- Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).

The 2025 edition of the ARWU places the UGR in 301-400th position in the world and as the 3-8 highest ranked University in Spain, reaffirming its position as an institution at the forefront of national and international research.

From the perspective of specialist areas in the ARWU rankings,



the UGR is outstanding in Mathematics, Artificial Intelligence and Dentistry & Oral Sciences (ranked between 51th-75th position), Computer Science & Engineering, Education and Hospitality & Tourism Management (between 76-100th position), and in the areas of Food Science & Technology and Business Administration (between 101-150th position).

A little lower in the ranking, the UGR also stands out in the areas of Earth Sciences, Law, Management, Nursing, Psychology and Statistics, in which the UGR is positioned in the 151-200th position.
Internationally, the University of Granada is firmly committed to its participation in the calls of the Framework Programme of the European Union.

For the duration of the prevoius Framework Programme, Horizon 2020, the UGR obtained a totalof124 projectswith a total funding of more than€30 million. For the current Framework Programme, Horizon Europe, the UGR has obtained136 projects, so far, with a total funding of more than€38 million.

Brief description of the Centre/Research Group: The BIO188 research group https://www.bio188.es/ at the University of Granada is a microbiology research group based in the Department of Microbiology in the Faculty of Pharmacy, with its main laboratory situated at the Biomedical Research Center (CIBM) building, at the Scientific Technological Park (PTS).

It focuses on studying microorganisms that live in extreme environments and exploring their potential applications (exopolysaccharide production, alleviating stress in plants, etc) in the biotechnology, agriculture, and industry sectors.
The BIO188 group investigates halophilic and halotolerant microorganisms —microbes that thrive in high-salt environments such as hypersaline lakes and salterns.

Their research combines microbial ecology, molecular microbiology, and biotechnology to understand how these organisms function and how their biological products can be used in practical applications.

Key research lines include:

- Biodiversity of hypersaline environments and the discovery of new microorganisms.




- Characterization of halophilic bacteria, including their physiology and taxonomy.
- Microbial exopolysaccharides, polymers produced by bacteria with potential uses in cosmetics, medicine, and industry.
- Bacterial communication systems (quorum sensing) and methods to disrupt them (quorum quenching) to control pathogenic microbes.

Biotechnological applications, such as plant growth promotion, antimicrobial compounds, and enzyme discovery through metagenomics.

Beneficial members of the soil microbiota act through different mechanisms to stimulate plant growth and health, such as by facilitating nutrient acquisition, solubilizing iron, fixing nitrogen, inhibiting plant pathogens.

Our research is interested in disentangling the mechanisms that govern bacteria interactions with the environment and harness beneficial microorganisms to use them in agriculture to stimulate plant health and growth, especially in high salinity conditions, which is a common scenario nowadays due to climate change and the extensive use of chemicals in agriculture.

Despite the promising potential of using beneficial microorganisms as inoculants in agriculture to increase crop yield, this approach still faces some difficulties, such as field efficacy and reproducibility of strains that have been selected in lab conditions.

This has largely prevented both the scientific community and stakeholders from fully benefiting from the potential of beneficial plant-microorganism interactions.
Implementing the use of beneficial microorganisms in agriculture requires a deep and good understanding of the underlying processes.

Identification of environmental and genetic determinants controlling bacterial interactions with crops in saline conditions is paramount for the development of a more sustainable agriculture, and this requires multidisciplinary research approaches.

However, gene function discovery, as it has been conducted in the last decades, is very time-consuming and is a rate-limiting step in 1) translating knowledge into agricultural practices and 2) predicting the impact of climate change on plant-microbe interactions.

The aim of this project is to implement high throughput genomic tools to identify fitness determinants involved in salt tolerance in a collection of halophilic plant bacteria.

Research Area:

- Environment and Geosciences (ENV)
- Life Sciences (LIFE) #J-18808-Ljbffr

📌 MSCA-PF: Joint application at the University of Granada. Department of MICROBIOLOGY.
🏢 International Research Projects Office
📍 Granada