Each year Laval University launches a competitive process to postulate few candidates to the Canada Research Chairs. This year, the Villarreal Lab was awarded one of the seven Canada Research Chair, two professors of the Faculty of Science and Engineering were granted this competitive award.

The 5-year project deals with the symbiosis between tropical plants (especially gymnosperms) and microbes (virus, fungi and bacteria) at a genomic and metabolomic level. The research is mostly based in Panama in close link with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and SENACYT.

The Villarreal lab has already one master student, Sandrine Toupin, and two doctoral students, Loïc Soumila and Adriel Sierra Pinilla, implicated in the research.

The lab is actively looking for motivated doctoral and post-doctoral researchers to join the lab: https://villarreal-lab.ibis.ulaval.ca/join-the-lab/ . Please contact us!!!