Edelmira Valero
received her PhD degree in Chemistry from the
University of Murcia, Spain, in 1990. Since November 1986 she is a
member of the Physical Chemistry Department at the University of
Castilla-La Mancha. She is currently
an associate professor of Physical Chemistry in the School of Industrial
Engineers of Albacete (Spain).
Her research interests include enzyme kinetics, enzymatic inhibition,
computer simulation of biochemical pathways, substrate cycling, zymogen activation
processes, enzyme cascades, oxidoreductase enzymes: polyphenol oxidase,
peroxidase and laccase. During the last years, Prof. Valero has focused her research on
studying the kinetics of different biological mechanisms of response amplification
against a signal. In particular, she has worked on the activation of pepsinogen and
plasminogen, on the activation of zymogens in the presence of different inhibitors and
on different models of substrate cycling such as a ternary cycle between adenine nucleotides
and a model for double substrate cycling for the highly amplified ADP (and/or ATP) quantification.
Her current research focuses on the simulation of the dynamic behaviour of the
glutathione-ascorbate redox cycle in chloroplasts and
on the study of new possible applications of oxidoreductase enzymes. All
of this research is supported by several projects, the main researcher of
them being Dr. Valero.