JAVIER SAMPEDRO JIMENEZ

Javier Sampedro Jimenez is a Professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela, affiliated with the Department of Functional Biology within the Faculty of Physics. His primary research focuses on plant cell wall biology, particularly xyloglucan metabolism and enzymatic regulation in plants like Arabidopsis and Brachypodium distachyon. He received his PhD from the University of Santiago de Compostela in 2001 with a thesis titled 'α-xylosidase activity in plant cell walls', supervised by Dr. Ignacio Zarra Cameselle, Dr. Tomás González Villa, and Dr. Carmen Sieiro Vázquez.

His work integrates biochemical, genetic, and evolutionary approaches to study cell wall polysaccharide biosynthesis, enzymatic processing, and their roles in plant growth and development. Key themes include the functional characterization of glycosidases, expansins, and transcription factors involved in secondary cell wall formation and stress responses. Recent studies highlight the conservation of xyloglucan disassembly mechanisms in angiosperms and the evolutionary divergence of expansin proteins in grasses.

Publications consistently address topics like β-galactosidase and β-expansin roles in cell wall remodeling, NAC transcription factors in secondary wall regulation, and antimicrobial compounds from plants. His research group (BIOTEC) employs monocot models such as Brachypodium distachyon to explore developmental and biotechnological applications. No scientific awards are explicitly listed, but his contributions to plant cell wall biology are widely cited in the field.

His advisory role is reflected in directing his own doctoral thesis but no current advisees are documented here. Research interests span glycobiology, plant developmental genetics, and functional genomics with applications in biotechnology and agricultural science.