Plants are an extremely valuable source of products and have uses of very diverse interest. Their applications include agri-food, pharmacological, ornamental, ecological and environmental uses, with traditional applications such as reforestation, or new ones such as the use of plants for cleaning up and regenerating contaminated soils.

In the last years, plant biotechnology applications in industry are experiencing a golden age, and have moved in a very short time from traditional applications in the textile and dye industry to new horizons, for example in the biofuels, plastics or vaccines industries. Exploiting production capacities to the full, designing and developing new capacities, and increasing the added value of existing crops is an exciting challenge for biotechnology today, all in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.

Given this situation, both industry and scientific research demand greater preparation in the latest techniques in biotechnology, not only from the point of view of cellular and molecular biology, but also from the point of view of plant genetic engineering. To this end, this Master’s degree, part of the postgraduate programme in Biotechnology at the UPV and taught at the facilities of the Institute for Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology, a joint centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Polytechnic University of Valencia, provides a syllabus in which students will gain in-depth knowledge of the techniques and cutting-edge applications in plant biotechnology.

The Master is taught by professors from the Universitat Politècnica de València, with the collaboration of renowned CSIC researchers. It also has the contribution of personnel from leading biotechnology companies, in order to offer the graduate a business perspective, as well as a basic and applied research approach.