Education

• B.Sc. Biochemical Engineering. Instituto Tecnológico de Mérida. 2003.
• Ph.D. Vegetal Biotechonology. Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados. 2012.
• Post-Doctorate. Plant Genomics, Plant-pathogen interaction. Michigan State University, North Carolina State University. 2014, 2016.
• Associated Professor. Plant Genomics and Bioinformatics. Michigan State University. 2014.
• Associated Professor. Plant-pathogen Interaction Genomics and Bioinformatics. North Carolina State University. 2016.

Current research

• Agrobiotechnology

ONGOING PROJECTS

• Transcriptome and endophytic microbiota analysis of wild vanilla (Vanilla planifolia).
• Transcriptome analysis and sequencing of wild papaya (Carica papaya).
• CRISPR/Cpf1 editing of CrGPDH2 and CrGPDH3 promoters to study the abiotic stress response mechanism in the green microalga C. reinhardtii.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

• Soto-Cardinault C, Childs KL, Góngora-Castillo E. (2023). Network Analysis of Publicly Available RNA-seq Provides Insights into the Molecular Mechanisms of Plant Defense against Multiple Fungal Pathogens in Arabidopsis thaliana. Genes. 14(12):2223. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes14122223.
• Andrade-Marcial, M., Pacheco-Arjona, R., Góngora-Castillo, E. et al. (2022). Chloroplastic pentatricopeptide repeat proteins (PPR) in albino plantlets of Agave angustifolia Haw. reveal unexpected behavior. BMC Plant Biol 22, 352 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-022-03742-2.
• J. R. Standish, E. Góngora-Castillo, M. J. Bowman, K. L. Childs, M. Tian, and L. M. Quesada-Ocampo. (2022). Development, Validation, and Utility of Species-Specific Diagnostic Markers for Detection of Peronospora belbahrii. https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/abs/10.1094/PHYTO-09-21-0393-R.
• Maceda-López LF, Góngora-Castillo EB, Ibarra-Laclette E, Morán-Velázquez DC, Girón Ramírez A, Bourdon M, Villalpando-Aguilar JL, Toomer G, Tang JZ, Azadi P, et al. (2022) Transcriptome Mining Provides Insights into Cell Wall Metabolism and Fiber Lignification in Agave tequilana Weber. Plants 11(11):1496. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11111496.
• Andres Salcedo, Jameel Al-Haddad, C. Robin Buell, Frances Trail, Elsa Góngora-Castillo, and Lina Quesada-Ocampo (2021). Comparative Transcriptome Analysis of Two Contrasting Maize Inbred Lines Provides Insights on Molecular Mechanisms of Stalk Rot Resistance. PhytoFrontiers^™ 1:4, 314-329

PATENTS OR TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS

• Lina Quesada-Ocampo, Saunia Withers, Elsa Beatriz Gongora-Castillo. Methods for diagnosis of Pseudoperonospora cubensis infection and selection of plant resistance genes to the same. 16331191. USA. (2019).

RECOGNITIONS AND AWARDS

• 2021-2025. Investigador Nacional Nivel II. Sistema Nacional de Investigadores - CONACYT.
• 2018-2021. Investigador Nacional Nivel I. Sistema Nacional de Investigadores - CONACYT.
• 2015-2017. Investigador Nacional Nivel I. Sistema Nacional de Investigadores - CONACYT.

RECOMMENDED WEB PAGES

• Góngora-Castillo Lab. https://www.researchgate.net/lab/Elsa-Gongora-Castillo-Lab.
• Publons; https://publons.com/author/451715/elsa-gongora-castillo#profile.
• ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6327-6993.