Polyploidbreeding
PRIN 2022 (Settore LS2)
Start date: 28 September 2023
End date: 27 September 2025
Project partners
CNR: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (National Research Council)
Project coordinator: Filippo Biscarini, Ph.D.
My research activities span from plant and animal breeding & genetics, to bioinformatics and biostatistics applications in plant & animal science and human medicine. I worked for the breeding industry, for universities and research centres in many places: Italy, Ireland, Canada, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain, The United Kingdom, Belgium. I am now Senior Scientist at CNR, where I rejoined my research group after a 2-yr secondment at the Data Analysis Team of the ERC (European Research Council). Current focus is on machine learning and deep learning methods for data analysisi n life science.
Post-doctoral researcher: Giulia Moscatelli, Ph.D.
I obtained a Ph.D. in Agriculture, Environment and Food Science \& Technology from the Department of Animal Breeding, University of Bologna. I have soon developed a strong interest in the field of genetics and genomics applied to different biological systems, carrying out research activities mainly in livestock genetics. Over time, I have strenghtened my knowledge in genetics through the analysis of genomic ``big data’’ (from sequencing platforms) with bioinformatic’s tools. Main topics of research have been genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of production and type traits in cattle, and the detection of selection signatures in farm animals. My research activities have been interspersed with additional job experiences as employee in a company and in a national trade association. These experiences allowed me to directly make contact with the Italian agri-business field and to promote the application of new knowledge on sustainable agriculture, considering both the long-term environmental impact and the economic targets of the farmers.
Università di Bologna
[Elisabetta Frascaroli, Matteo Bozzoli, Alessia Confortini]
In progress
CREA: Consiglio per la Ricerca in Economia ed Agricoltura
CREA-ZA representative: Nelson Nazzicari, Ph.D.
Bioinformatics, biostatistics, deep learning and general data science. More info at @Bioinformateachers
CREA-GB representative: Agostino Fricano, Ph.D.
I am a research scientist with extensive expertise in quantitative genetics and bioinformatics applied to genomics. Beyond participating at several publicly funded research initiatives, in the past five years I coordinated “iBarMed”, an ERANET-ARIMNet2 project focused on the application of genomic selection for barley breeding and “GENDIBAR” (PRIMA-S2, 2019-2023) which aimed at combining genomics and crop modelling to sustain barley breeding in the Mediterranean to cope with climate change. Before joining CREA-GB, I worked for 5 years at the “Breeding & Trait Development” department of a seed multinational corporation, holding different leadership positions of increasing responsibility.
SIS: Società Italiana Sementi
Eder Groli
I obtained my BSc. degree in Agronomy at the Federal University of Pelotas (Brazil) in 2014. In 2016, I concluded my MSc. degree in Agronomy (Genetics and Plant Breeding) at the University of São Paulo “Júlio de Mesquita Filho”, campus Jaboticabal (Brazil). In 2020, I obtained my PhD degree in Agricultural, Environmental and Food Science and Technology (Genetics and Plant Breeding) at the University of Bologna (Italy). My PhD project was funded by the Monsanto’s Beachell-Borlaug International Scholars Program (MBBISP) and focused on dissecting the heat-stress QTLome in durum wheat. During my academic and professional carrier, I have developed and increased my expertise in plant genetics, plant breeding, molecular analysis, statistical approaches, field trials experimentation, and high-throughput phenotyping. Since 2020, I am a Plant breeder at S.I.S. Società Italiana Sementi S.p.A., in Italy. My activities are focused on the development of new common and durum wheat varieties with superior performance for the most important agronomical and qualitative traits.
Paolo De Franceschi
I obtained my degree in Plant Biotechnology and later my PhD at the University of Bologna. I worked in research for several years, first at the University of Bologna and later at CREA-CI, focusing on plant genetics and molecular biology. I also had the opportunity to conduct part of my work at research institutes abroad (CITA-Aragon, Spain and Michigan State University, USA). My research activity is primarily focused on the identification and characterization of genes involved in self-incompatibility mechanisms, pollen-pistil interactions, and other traits of qualitative or productive importance in different agriculturally relevant species (fruit crops and cereals). Since 2020, I have been working as a researcher at SIS - Società Italiana Sementi, where I focus on cereal breeding and research projects aimed at the implementation of advanced technologies.