Editorial Board Member

Dr. Francisca Fernandez-Piñas is a full professor of the Department of Biology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. She is head of the Environmental Toxicology and Global Change research group. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed research articles and participated in 25 research projects, being the PI of eight of them. She has supervised up to 11 Ph.D. Theses. She has participated in the organization of several R&D activities including being a member of the scientific and organizing committees of several national and international meetings. Her research focuses on Microbiology, Environmental Toxicology, and Molecular Genetics, particularly in the construction of reporter systems based on bacterial biosensor strains for environmental purposes and in the elucidation of molecular and cellular mechanisms of the toxic action of a variety of pollutants. More recently, she has focused on toxicity assessment of emerging pollutants both singly and in complex mixtures, such as engineered nanomaterials and plastics (including micro and nanoplastics), monitoring toxicity in relevant aquatic organisms. Another line of research is the study of microbial colonization on the surface of microplastics.

Environmental toxicology, Aquatic photosynthetic microorganisms, Cyanobacteria, Whole-cell biosensors for environmental pollution, Nanotoxicology, Toxicology of micro- and nanoplastics