The totanero, Pedro Martinez Gomez, CEBAS-CSIC researcher and IU-Greens councilor in the city of Totana, gave a lecture at the University of Tunis El Manar, in a Spain-Tunisia bilateral project funded by the Spanish Agency International Cooperation for Development (AECID).
This lecture was part of the project "Study of Tunisian apricot germplasm: genetic diversity, phylogeny and identification of markers linked to agronomic traits of interest" and dealt with the genomic analysis (DNA level) and transcriptomic (at RNA) in the genus Prunus fruit like almond or apricot traditionally cultivated in Tunisia in some cases oasis next to the Sahara desert.
The group led by Dr. Pedro Martinez is currently an international leader in DNA studies (functional genomics) and recently in fruit species are entering a research leader in the study of RNA (transcriptomics).
In 2006 he received the International Prize "Miklos Faust International Award", awarded by the American Society of Horticulture (American Society for Horticultural Science), which awards young researchers who work in the area of plant breeding of fruit.
He also recently received the International Prize for Research "Khwarizmi International Award" in a ceremony organized by the Academy of Sciences of Iran (Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology, IROST) for his contribution to the study of wild almond species originating in Iran.
He also used his sight to exchange views on citizens' movements and their participation in the recent established democracy in Tunisia.
Right now, after the revolution (in Tunisia to what we call like to call Arab Spring Revolution to dry) January 2011 that opened the doors to other revolutions in other countries, Tunisia is in full swing Democratic.
At the last general elections were over a hundred games currently have coalesced into three major coalitions, the Muslim Brotherhood, the union-leftist and liberal-conservative.
As an anecdote indicate that currently there are dozens of daily demonstrations and protest actions only in Tunis, the capital.
See also striking cars that were burned during the revolution turned into real monuments to this revolution.
