Mihail Angelov

With a BSc in agronomy and MSc in plant protection, Mr. Angelov has solid agricultural foundations, gained both through his studies and his thesis work on distinctness, uniformity and stability (DUS) testing, and identification of virus resistance genes for the needs of breeding programs in tomatoes. During an internship at West Pomeranian University of Technology (Szczecin, Poland) he was able to work on preharvest sprouting and lodging in rye and take part in the routine genotyping tasks in the genetics department. Now as a laboratory technician/manager he supports the researchers in the Molecular Stress Physiology Department at CPSBB in their quest to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying the response of plants to abiotic stress. Working in the frame of the RESIST project, as a visiting scientist at the company BioAtlantis, Mr. Angelov investigated the effects of prolonged elevated temperatures on fruit set and yield in tomatoes, and the potential alleviation of this abiotic stress with the help of a seaweed extract biostimulant, employing a multi-faceted approach combining physiological analyses, and qualitative and quantitative fruit parameters. Along with this, he took part in experiments, aiming to optimize the product application and other ongoing research activities at BioAtlantis. The CropPrime project, which is a natural continuation of RESIST and is based on some of the progress, achieved during this project, will allow Mr. Angelov to improve his skills in molecular biology wet work, and learn new techniques in plant genetics and systems biology, working on transcriptome profiling and ChIP-Seq of plants, treated with lead candidate elicitors, as well as elucidating their molecular mode of action.