Full Professor of Microbiology at the University of Valencia and Director of the Spanish Type Culture Collection. She has been involved in MIRRI since the preparatory phase and has chaired the MIRRI Interim National Coordinators Forum working towards the MIRRI-ERIC construction. At national level, Dr. Aznar coordinates the Spanish MIRRI National Node and leads the Spanish Network of Microorganisms (REDESMI) and the Spanish Network of Excellence “MicroBioSpain” (www.microbiospain.org).
With more than 36 years of research experience, her research career on food microbiology started on 1996 at the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology (IATA, CSIC, Valencia). Research focused on the development and application of PCR techniques for the detection, quantification and identification of microorganisms (bacteria, fungi and viruses) covering food safety and quality aspects: i) Development of rapid methods based on "real time PCR" for the quantitative detection of food pathogens (enteric bacteria and viruses), as well as their viable / infectious forms (vqPCR); Validation of PCR methods for detection of pathogens in food and water matrices and their adaptation to routine analysis; ii) Bacterial identification using molecular techniques (16S rRNA sequencing, RAPD, RFLP, MALDI-TOF profiles); iii) Lactic acid bacteria from traditionally fermented food: isolation, identification and biotechnological characterization for functional food applications.
Research has been supported by participation in 48 research projects (EU, National, Autonomic), leading 21 of them, and published in 125 scientific papers, 7 international book chapters, two patents and 290 Communications to National and International Congresses, as well as invited papers.
She is member of the Council of the Spanish Society for Microbiology (SEM) and the Council of the Spanish Society for Biotechnology (SEBIOT).