Lorena Ruiz

Dr. Lorena Ruiz is a Senior Research Scientist at the Dairy Research Institute of the Spanish Research Council (IPLA-CSIC). She conducted her PhD research work in the same institution, focused on studying probiotic strains responses to technological and host-associated stress factors with a particular interest in their role in microbe-host interactions.. Afterwards, she joined the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre at University College Cork, Ireland, as a Postdoctoral Researcher where her research focused on developing new molecular tools for improving genomics accessibility of bifidobacteria, with an emphasis on their use to understand bifidobacteria-host interactions. At her return to Spain, she joined the Department of Nutrition, Bromatology and Food Technology at UCM, as an IEF Marie Curie Research Fellow where she conducted research on human milk microbiomes and their impact on early life nutrition. In 2017 she returned back to IPLA_CSIC, and since 2021 she has been promoted to Senior Research Scientist. Her research interests include functional foods, probiotics and prebiotics, with an emphasis on improving technological and functional properties of probiotic bacteria, understanding commensal microbiota interactions with the host and their impact on health and disease, and explore the development of novel prebiotics as valorization strategies for agricultural by-products. The overall aim of her research is focused on exploting food and human associated microbiomes to improve human health and nutrition, as well as to contribute to more sustainable food sytems.