People

Sept 2023, (left to right) Petra, Damiano, Paolo, Sara Jr, Sara Sr., Lucio, Ibrahim, Bea, Simone, Luca and Aldo

Lucio Conti (PI) is associate professor of genetics. He teaches Biotecnologie vegetali industriali, Genetica (Bachelor degrees) and Molecular Genetics (MSc degree). His research revolves around the mode of action of plant hormones ABA and GA in the control of the switch to flowering under varying environmental conditions.

Damiano Martignago (Tenure track researcher – RTDa) studies how ABA signals are decoded at the shoot apex. He is also using the natural genetic variation of Arabidopsis to expose new alleles that affect the drought escape process.

Sara Colanero (Postdoc) uses Arabidopsis and tomato to understand how hormones ABA and GA signalling and production interact in the context of vegetative growth and how this impacts yield traits, stress responses and adaptability.

Paolo Korwin Krukowski (Postdoc) is using molecular approaches to identify how signals derived from changes in photoperiod and ABA accumulation are integrated at the chromatin levels.

Beatrice Landoni (Postdoc) uses ecological and genomic approaches to understand why correlations exist between environmental and phenotypic variation by focusing on water availability and life-history traits such as flowering time.

Aldo Sutti (Graduate student) studies the natural variation of drought escape with Damiano Martignago.

Ibrahim Loukili (MSc student in Biotechnology for the Bioeconomy) works with Sara on a project aimed at reducing water use in tomato using gene editing approaches.

Luca Rabagliati (MSc student in Plant Science) works with Paolo on a project aimed at exploring the diel organization of transcriptional networks regulated by water deficit.

Simone Sarto (MSc student in Bioinformatics for Computational Genomics) uses in silico approaches to study ABA-regulated bZIPs function at the shoot apex together with Damiano and Beatrice.

Viktoriia Kyrychenko (Graduate student, HFSP ‘Science for Scientists’ fellow)

Federico Lozza (BSc student in Biotechnology)

Previous Members:

Sara Castelletti , Beata Siemiatkowska (Post doc)

Alice Robustelli Test (PhD student)

Matteo Riboni and Giulia Castorina (PhD students and then Postdocs), co-supervised with Prof Chiara Tonelli

Eliana Mor, Giada Lavigna, Stefano Messina, Marco Furco, Jasmin Putri Nabila, Elia Mancini, Alessandra Lombardi, Silvia Longo, Joseph Kumar, Aldo Sutti, Petra Merzan (MSc Students)

Christian Ferraro, Silvia Paganini, Andrea Motta, Giulia Pozzi, Erika Fascini, Fabio Boiocchi, Carlotta Ferrario, Aldo Sutti, Andrea Persello, Chiara Arcari, Carlotta Nardi, Sara Cioffi, Alessandra Bosc, Samuele Austoni, Petra Merzan, Mirko Efoglia, Gaia Pilerci, Camilla Iliceto, (BSc students)

Marziye Rahimi (Visiting PhD student), Daniel Cayuelas Peral (Erasmus Trainee)