Alexander Vergara Robles

Assistant Professor with an engineering degree in Molecular Biotechnology and a Ph.D. in Sciences. Research focuses on plant responses to abiotic stresses through regulatory network modeling.

Interests include Bioinformatics, Omics technologies, Data mining of massive datasets, Network Biology, and Biological Complexity.

Ph.D. in Sciences (2009)

Faculty of Sciences, Universidad de Chile.

Engineering in Molecular Biotechnology — Diploma (2009)

Faculty of Sciences, Universidad de Chile.

Engineering in Molecular Biotechnology — Licentiate (2003)

Faculty of Sciences, Universidad de Chile.

Assistant Professor (2025–)

Universidad de O'Higgins · Instituto de Ciencias de la Ingeniería.

Staff Scientist (2020–2025)

Umeå University · Department of Physics (IceLab).

Research Engineer (2017–2020)

Swedish University of Agricultural Science.

Postdoctoral Researcher (2015–2017)

Swedish University of Agricultural Science.

Postdoctoral Researcher (2014–2015)

Universidad de La Serena.

Senior Bioinformatician (2011–2014)

Brotar Ltd.

Postdoctoral Researcher (2009–2010)

Universidad de Chile.

Chilean Government Fellowship CONICYT (2012)

Insertion of Advanced Human Capital for Industry.

Student Travel Award (2010)

OIST Workshop "Evolution of Complex Systems".

Government Fellowship CONICYT (2006)

Fellowship for foreign short courses.

Government Fellowship CONICYT (2005)

Internship.

Honor Mention Prize (2005)

Annual Meeting of Chilean Cell Biology Society.

Government Fellowship CONICYT (2004)

Ph.D. Funding Fellowship.

Annual Award in Science (1996)

Liceo Juan Bosco, Salesianos Alameda School, Santiago.

Honor Mention Prize (1995)

Biology Olympics, Universidad de Santiago de Chile.

Vergara A., Hernández-Verdeja T., Ojeda P., Ramirez L., Edler D., Rosvall M., Strand Å. (2026). IsoformMapper: a web application for protein-level comparison of splice variants through structural community analysis. RNA 32: 1–20.

Ibáñez C., Vergara A., Castro D., Bascunan-Godoy L., Sjölander J., Jurca M., Pin P.A., Nilsson O., Eriksson M.E. (2025). The circadian clock of Populus affects physiological, transcriptional and metabolomic responses to osmotic and ionic components of salt stress. npj Biol Timing Sleep 2, 34.

Karamat F., Vergara A., Blomberg J., Crawford T., Lehotai N., Rentoft M., Strand Å., Björklund S. (2025). Arabidopsis mutants for Mediator Head, Middle, Tail, and Kinase modules reveal distinct roles in regulating the transcriptional response to salt stress. Plant Stress 101189.

Ojeda-May P., Vergara A. (2024). Effects of Colored Noise in the Dynamic Motions and Conformational Exploration of Enzymes. Foundations, 4(3), 324–335.

Abdel-Fattah W.R., Carlsson M., Hu G.-Z., Singh A., Vergara A., Aslam R., Ronne H., Björklund S. (2024). Growth-regulated co-occupancy of Mediator and Lsm3 at intronic ribosomal protein genes. Nucleic Acids Research.

Castro C., Rojas J., Ortíz J., Sanhueza R., Vergara A., Poblete F., Escobar E., Coba de la Peña T., Ostria-Gallardo E., Bascuñan-Godoy L. (2024). Nitrogen Stress Memory in Quinoa: Maternal Effects on Seed Metabolism and Offspring Growth and Physiology. Physiologia Plantarum.

Hermida-Carrera C., Vergara A., Cervela-Cardona L., Jin X., Björklund S., Strand Å. (2024). CDK8 of the mediator kinase module connects leaf development to the establishment of correct stomata patterning by regulating the levels of the transcription factor SPEECHLESS. Plant, Cell & Environment.

Blomberg J., Tasselius V., Vergara A., Karamat F., Imran Q.M., Strand Å., Rosvall M., Björklund S. (2024). Pseudomonas syringae infectivity correlates to altered transcript and metabolite levels of Arabidopsis Mediator mutants. Scientific Reports, 14(6771).

Bai B., Schiffthaler B., Van der Horst S., Willems L., Vergara A., Karlström J., Mähler N., Delhomme N., Bentsink L., Hanson J. (2023). SeedTransNet: a directional translational network revealing regulatory patterns during seed maturation and germination. Journal of Experimental Botany, 74(7), 2416–2432.

Hernández-Verdeja T., Vuorijoki L., Jin X., Vergara A., Dubreuil C., Strand Å. (2022). GENOMES UNCOUPLED1 plays a key role during the de-etiolation process in Arabidopsis. New Phytologist, 235(1), 188–203.

Vergara A., Haas J.C., Aro T., Stachula P., Street N.R., Hurry V. (2022). Norway spruce deploys tissue-specific responses during acclimation to cold. Plant, Cell & Environment, 45(2), 427–445.

Haas J.C., Vergara A., Serrano A.R., Mishra S., Hurry V., Street N.R. (2021). Candidate regulators and target genes of drought stress in needles and roots of Norway spruce. Tree Physiology, 41(7), 1230–1246.

Pinto-Irish K., Alvarez R., Coba De La Peña T., Ibanez C., Vergara A., Castro P., Castro C., Sanhueza C., Bascunan-Godoy L. (2020). Seed characterization and early Nitrogen metabolism performance of seedlings from Altiplano and Coastal ecotypes of Quinoa. BMC Plant Biology, 20, 343.

Nunez M.T., Osorio A., Tapia V., Vergara A., Mura C.V. (2001). Iron-induced oxidative stress up-regulates calreticulin levels in intestinal epithelial (Caco-2) cells. Journal of Cell Biochemistry, 82(4), 660–665.

Orellana A., Osorio O., Yuseff I., Vergara A., Norambuena L. (1999). Synthesis of Polysaccharides in the Golgi apparatus from plant cells. FASEB Journal, 13(7), A1514–A1514.

Computer skills

Expertise in Perl and R. Experience working with Linux and Bash scripting, Git, RStudio, RShiny, databases and HPC.

Spoken Languages

English and Spanish.

I like retro video games and enjoy nature. I am a football lover who plays weekly with colleagues and friends.