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Isidro Abreu Sanchez

Senior Postdoctoral Researcher

Hello there!

My name is Isidro Abreu Sanchez, and believe or not I was trained as a plant scientist in Spain, working on how plants absorb, mobilize, and use nutrients such as boron (B), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu).

In 2020 I moved to Oxford to understand how some plant-beneficial bacteria use these same micronutrients, under the frame of a Marie-Curie Fellowship (IronFeRhizo project). While there I met Prof. Michael Zimmerman and Prof. Hal Drakesmith who convinced me to cross the aisle and join their quest to improve iron nutrition and reduce anaemia in women and children (contributing towards the U.N.'s 2030 Sustainable Development Goal of ‘Zero Hunger’).

As part of the Zimmerman group: "Iron Nutrition -Stable Isotopes and Therapeutics", my goal is to develop novel plant-based iron compounds that humans can easily absorb. For the first time, we will measure its absorption in humans using isotopically labelled compounds, which we can do intrinsically (during growth) or extrinsically (post-harvesting) and then use in human absorption studies. Overall, our research will guide the development of more nutritious crops, with iron readily accessible to humans.

Get in contact if you want to know more or collaborate!