Plant Physiology Unit

Professor Massimo E. Maffei

Full Professor, Coordinator of the unit

Massimo Maffei is Professor of Plant Physiology, Dept. Life Sciences, at the University of Turin, Italy. His research activity is focussed on plant interactions with the surrounding biotic and abiotic environment, with particular reference to signal transduction pathways, gene expression and metabolomics. He has been the Coordinator of the Ministerial Centre of Excellence for Biosensing, Head of Department of Plant Biology and Deputy Dean of Faculty of Sciences. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the international Journal of Plant Interactions (Taylor&Francis, London) and member of the advisory board of the Journal of Essential Oil Research. He is a reviewer for several international journals dealing with Plant Physiology, Phytochemistry, Natural Products Chemistry and Plant Biology.
Massimo E. Maffei on ResearchGate

Gianpiero Vigani, PhD - Full Professor

Prof Gianpiero Vigani is a full professor of Plant Physiology at Department of Life Science and System Biology of University of Turin. He achieved the PhD in Agricultural Ecology (2008) at Università degli Studi di Milano. His research interests are mainly focused on the characterization of the plant's responses to abiotic stresses (nutrient deficiencies, water deficiency and salt stress). In particular, he studied the role of mitochondria in the modulation of Fe-deficiency induced metabolic responses in plants. He is also exploring the interaction among nutrients in plants and the impact of multiple nutrient stresses on plant growth and metabolism. He is author and co-author of several scientific articles published in international journal and he regularly performed peer-reviewing activities of both scientific paper and international scientific projects. He is associate editor in Frontiers Journals (Plant Science and Frontiers for Young minds sections). He carried out several oral presentations (selected or Invited keynotes) at both national and international conferences.

Cinzia M. Bertea, PhD - Associate Professor

Cinzia M. Bertea is associate professor of Plant Physiology at the Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology, University of Turin, Italy. Her scientific research is mainly focused on basic and applied research related to physiology, biochemistry and molecular biology of plant responses to abiotic and biotic stress and on molecular biology and biochemistry of secondary metabolites with particular regard to terpenoids and phenolic compounds in medicinal and food plants. Her current research lines include: i) search for new plant biostimulants, innovative products employed in agriculture for enhancing plant growth, development, tolerance to abiotic stress and crop yield; ii) isolation of natural herbicides and/or pesticides based on plant products or allelochemicals for a sustainable use in agriculture; iii) isolation, analysis and biological activity evaluation of primary and secondary metabolites from plants and other organisms to be employed in food and pharmaceutical industries; iv) DNA fingerprinting of medicinal and food plants. She is currently involved in several national and international projects. She is member of the tutor board of the Doctoral School of “Sciences and Innovative Technologies” Ph.D. Program in “Pharmaceutical and Biomolecular Sciences” and President of the Master Degree Program in “Food Sciences and Human Nutrition”.

Stefano D’Alessandro, PhD – Associate Professor

Stefano D’Alessandro is associace professor of Plant Physiology at the Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology of the University of Turin, Italy. His scientific interests are focused on hormones and volatile molecules signaling. More in general his scientific expertise include: chloroplast signaling, regulation of photosynthesis, photooxidative stress, response to environmental stress, phytohormones, root development, CK2 and TOR phosphorylation.

Giuseppe Mannino, PhD - Assistant Professor (RTDB)

He got the master degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology at the University of Palermo in 2015; he decided to continue his studies starting a PhD course in Pharmaceutical and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of Torino. During his Masters Thesis, he experienced various techniques on cell coltures and he spent a year at the University of Granada where he refined his skills in analytical techniques. Main field of his research is currently chemical analyses and extraction techniques for quality control of food and dietary supplements, carried out with gas and liquid chromatography combined with mass spectrometry.

Van Cong Doan, PhD - Research Fellows (RTDA)

Since his early research, he is interested in the impact of global climate change on plant-insect-natural enemy interactions. He uses plant chemicals, plant traits, ecological phenomenon, and biological responses of the plant, insect, and natural enemies to unravel the mechanisms of climate change on the tri-trophic interactions. He also learns to master several techniques, including plant and insect behavioral and performance experiments, sugar and starch analyses, protein analyses, amino acid measurements, targeted and untargeted metabolomics (HPLC-qDA-MS and qTOF-MS), volatile analyses (GC-MS) and q-RT-PCRs. Currently, his research aims to invest how the impact of the Rare Earth Elements on the eCOsystem (RECO) by assessing the impact of the Rare Earth Element on multitrophic interactions among plants, herbivores (below and above ground herbivore), and their natural enemies (below and aboveground).

Simone Bossi, PhD - Technician

In 2000 he won a public competition for a permanent position in the Life Sciences and Systems Biology Department at the University of Turin and now he works as Manager Laboratory Technician in the GC-MS and HPLC chromatography laboratory at the ”Innovation Centre” in Turin, a branch of the same department. He is involved in educational activities regarding plant physiology, plant biochemistry and secondary plant metabolites classes. During his career he gained experiences in several techniques such as gas‐chromatography, mass spectrometry, high performance liquid chromatography, confocal laser scanning microscopy, membrane potential measurement techniques and black lipid membrane techniques.

Moez Maghrebi, PhD - Research fellow

Moez Maghrebi is a research fellow at the Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology, University of Turin, Italy. Graduated from the University of Milan with a PhD degree in Plant Biology and Productivity of Cultivated Plants. His scientific research activity focused on the physiological and molecular characterization of plant responses to abiotic stresses (salt stress, sulfur deficiency, and heavy metal stress). His research experience included studying the nutritional and photosynthetic responses to salinity, the development of a specific plant molecular bioindicator of sulfur deficiency, analyzing root system architecture, studying the different mechanisms of Cadmium distribution, and the determination of the content in compounds with a nutritional interest.

Edoardo Tosato, PhD - Research fellow

Edoardo got his Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences in 2018 and his Master’s degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology in 2021 at the University of Bologna; he will also get his PhD in Molecular Plant Physiology in 2025 at the University of Bologna, with a thesis concerning the investigation of the Arabidopsis thaliana cytochromes b561 protein family in the regulation of the intracellular ascorbate redox homeostasis. During his PhD, he acquired skills in different molecular biology and biochemistry techniques, such as molecular cloning, nucleic acid manipulation, gene expression analysis, Western blotting, spectrophotometrical analyses for metabolites quantification and enzymatic assays. Since November 2024, Edoardo is a research fellow at the Plant Physiology Unit, contributing to the study of the role of LISCL proteins and apocarotenoid signalling.

Paolo Korwin Krukowski, PhD - Research fellow

Paolo holds a master degree in Plant Biotechnology, which he obtained in 2017 with a thesis focused on the crosstalk between strigolactones and ABA in plant responses to drought stress. He then pursued a PhD at the University of Turin, continuing research in this area. Following his PhD, he joined the Genetic Unit at the University of Milan, where he explored the integration of the circadian clock and ABA signaling pathways in Arabidopsis thaliana.His expertise spans multiple areas, including molecular biology (with a particular emphasis on omics techniques such as RNA-seq, ATAC-seq, and ChIP-seq to study gene expression regulation and chromatin remodeling), biochemistry (protein stability analysis, protein-protein, and protein-DNA interaction studies, in vitro translation, bacterial expression), genetics (genotyping, breeding and transformation) and plant physiology (including gas exchange measurements, osmolyte content analysis, and abiotic stress protocols).Currently, he is a postdoctoral researcher at the Plant Physiology Unit of DBIOS, where he investigates the role of apocarotenoid signaling and FLV proteins in the model organism Physcomitrella patens.

Eva Campo - Research Fellow

In 2020, she completed a master’s degree in plant biotechnology at the University of Turin. Her thesis, part of the Horizon 2020 EU CHIC project, established a protoplast-based gene editing method in C. intybus at Wageningen University. She also completed a plant breeding program at Aeres University. In 2021, she won a research fellowship on the BIOSUVEG project at the University of Turin, where she began a PhD project funded by a European NOP in 2022. The focus was on optimizing tomato exudate extraction from agro-industrial waste for biostimulants production and investigating the enzyme modulating strigolactones by different approaches, including gene knock-out hairy roots. Currently, she’s a PhD candidate at DISAFA, holding a research fellowship at DBIOS to develop biostimulants from agro-industrial wastes. Proficient in genotyping, in vitro cultures, GoldenBraid® technology, CRISPR/Cas9 editing (protoplast and cotyledons), nucleic acid extraction, qRT-PCR, reporter gene expression (GFP), fragments (SeqStudio®) and bioinformatics analysis (including sequence alignment, SNP calling, sequence assembly, RNAseq), and plant physiology (gas exchange and water potential measurements, drought stress protocols).

Noemi Gatti - PhD student
Noemi earned her Master’s Degree in Plant Biotechnology from the University of Turin in 2021. Her scientific interests have focused on plant bioactive compounds and biodiversity, with a Master’s thesis on evaluating the effects of biostimulants on the nutraceutical properties of fruits grown under salt stress. She gained experience in various techniques for quantifying secondary metabolites, GC-MS, and evaluation of antioxidant activity of bioactive compounds. During her time as a Research Fellow, she had the opportunity to deepen her knowledge of plant elementome and biodiversity. Currently, she is a PhD student in Sustainable Development and Cooperation, working on a project focused on applying regenerative agriculture techniques to improve durum wheat resilience to climate change.

Maurizio Carnà - PhD student

Maurizio holds a master's degree in Plant Biotechnology at University of Turin in April 2023. His scientific research activities concern the study of plant bioactive compounds and plant molecular biology, but he also worked with fungi and insects. In his previous works from 2023 to 2024 he focused on phytochemical profile, DNA fingerprinting, and evaluation of functional properties of plants by spectrophotometric measurements and gas and liquid chromatographic techniques combined with mass spectrometry. His studies concern also chemical and molecular analysis of plant origin matrices and plants treated with biostimulants. He started his PhD in November 2024, and is working on apocarotenoid signaling and the role of Arabidopsis LISCL proteins in xenobiotic detoxification.

Francesco Caldo - PhD student

Francesco obtained a master's degree in Environmental Biology in October 2022, sparking his interest in plant physiology. Thanks to a fellowship, he was able to delve deeper into this topic at the University of Turin. During this period, he acquired new techniques and learned how to use GC-MS and CE. Currently, he is a PhD student in Pharmaceutical and Biomolecular Science, exploring the effects of the interaction between plants and mVOCs and their impact on plant development.

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