Claudia Stange studied Biochemistry at the University of Chile and received her degree in 1996. She got her doctoral degree in Biological Science from the Catholic University of Chile in 2004. She started a postdoctoral training at the Faculty of Science, University of Chile, in 2005. Two years later she obtained the position of Assistant Professor and in 2014 she was promoted to Associate Professor at the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Chile. At her postdoc training she started working on carotenoid biosynthesis regulation in carrot to 1) understand the effect of light on root development and carotenoid accumulation, 2) determine the functionality and regulation of key genes in the carotenoid pathway and 3) to apply this knowledge in new biotechnological applications.
Carrot (Daucus carota) is one of the most important vegetable cultivated worldwide and the main source of dietary provitamin A. Contrary to other plants, almost all carrot varieties accumulate massive amounts of carotenoids in the root grown in darkness. She described the inhibitory effect of light on carotenoid synthesis and carrot storage root development and actually she is looking for master genes that regulate this processes by means of highthroughput approaches. She is also working on the production of carotenoids (acting as vitamins, antioxidants and pigments) or abiotic stress inducible transcription factors in plants of agronomic interest, such as apples and kiwi.
