José-Antonio Daròs

José-Antonio Daròs is a Research Professor at the Institute for Plant Molecular and Cell Biology (IBMCP), a joint center between the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), in Spain, where he supervises the research group "Plant Virus Biotechnology". The group researches the interaction between plants and some of their pathogens, such as viruses and viroids. From this knowledge, the group expects to develop new biotechnological strategies for crop protection and to repurpose plant viruses and viroids into useful tools for biotechnology and synthetic biology.
J.A. Daròs obtained his degree in Biological Sciences in 1991 at University of Valencia (Spain) and his Ph.D. in 1994 in this same university, with a research work about viroid replication. He gained post-doctoral experience working in potyvirus molecular biology for three years and a half in the laboratory of Prof. James C. Carrington at Texas A&M University and Washington State University in the USA. He joined the laboratory of Prof. Ricardo Flores at IBMCP in 1998, where he continued investigating the viroid-plant interaction. In 2004, he obtained a permanent position as a Scientist in IBMCP. J.A. Daròs has authored around 150 research and review articles and book chapters about different aspects of plant virus and viroid biology, crop protection and plant biotechnology. 

List of representative bibliography

  1. Eiras M, Aragonés V, Marqués J, Gómez MD, Daròs JA. Eggplant latent viroid is located in the chloroplasts and nuclei of eggplant infected cells.Virol. J. 21 (1): 254. DOI: 10.1186/s12985-024-02530-8
  2. Merwaiss F, Lozano-Sanchez E, Zulaica J, Rusu L, Vazquez-Vilar M, Orzáez D, Rodrigo G, Geller R, Daròs JA. Plant virus-derived nanoparticles decorated with genetically encoded SARS-CoV-2 nanobodies display enhanced neutralizing activity. Plant Biotechnol. J. 22 (4): 876-891. DOI: 10.1111/pbi.14230.
  3. Uranga M, Aragonés V, García A, Mirabel S, Gianoglio S, Presa S, Granell A, Pasin F, Daròs J.A. RNA virus-mediated gene editing for tomato trait breeding. Hortic. Res. 11 (1): uhad279. DOI: 10.1093/hr/uhad279.
  4. Daròs JA. Future perspectives in viroid research. Fundamentals of Viroid Biology 397-407. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-323-99688-4.00018-3.
  5. Talens-Perales D, Nicolau-Sanus M, Marín-Navarro J, Polaina J, Daròs JA. Production in Nicotiana benthamiana of a thermotolerant glucose oxidase that shows enzybiotic activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. Curr. Res. Biotechnol. 6: 100148. DOI: 10.1016/j.crbiot.2023.100148.
  6. Ortolá B, Daròs JA. Viroids: Non-Coding Circular RNAs Able to Autonomously Replicate and Infect Higher Plants. Biology (Basel) 12 (2): 172. DOI: 10.3390/biology12020172.
  7. Talens-Perales D, Nicolau-Sanus M, Polaina J, Daròs JA. Expression of an extremophilic xylanase in Nicotiana benthamiana and its use for the production of prebiotic xylooligosaccharides. Sci. Rep. 12 (1): 15743. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-19774-5.
  8. Houhou F, Martí M, Cordero T, Aragonés V, Sáez C, Cebolla-Cornejo J, Pérez de Castro A, Rodríguez-Concepción M, Picó B, Daròs JA. Carotenoid fortification of zucchini fruits using a viral RNA vector. Biotechnol. J. 17 (5): e2100328. DOI: 10.1002/biot.202100328.
  9. Uranga M, Vazquez-Vilar M, Orzáez D, Daròs JA. CRISPR-Cas12a Genome Editing at the Whole-Plant Level Using Two Compatible RNA Virus Vectors. CRISPR J. 4 (5):761-769. DOI: 10.1089/crispr.2021.0049.
  10. Uranga M, Aragonés V, Selma S, Vázquez-Vilar M, Orzáez D, Daròs JA. Efficient Cas9 multiplex editing using unspaced sgRNA arrays engineering in a Potato virus X vector. Plant J. 106 (2): 555-565 DOI: 10.1111/tpj.15164.

For more, see
José-Antonio Daròs (0000-0002-6535-2889)ORCID

Relevant Research/Industry Projects

  1. Biotechnological applications of plant virus-derived vectors (PID2023-146418OB-I00)
    Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades; Agencia Estatal de Investigación (Spain)
    1 September 2024 - 31 August 2027
    Funded MCIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and ERDF, EU
  2. New plant breeding strategies based on whole-plant RNA delivery and data mining, RNAbreed (CIPROM/2022/21)
    Generalitat Valenciana (Spain)
    1 January 2023 - 31 December 2026
    Funded Conselleria d'Innovació, Universitats, Ciència i Societat Digital, Program PROMETEO