Profile

I’m hungry for knowledge. From the moment I wake up to the time of bed I read and learn new things from the world. I don’t see myself as a scientist, even if I’m working hard to be one. But when I see the work of the greatest scientists I feel humbled by their great achievements compared to my small steps. But as I say when i climb: even the tallest mountain can be climbed one step at time.

I spent my whole life in Italy, but I’m from a mixed background: my mom is from mexico. Thanks to that, I speak Italian and Spanish as my mother tongues and I can also cook very good pastas and great tacos.

I love all animals, mostly the ones that people fear, such as spiders, snakes, sharks. Speaking of sharks, I once dove with a black tip shark in the Caribbean.

I’m a molecular biologist. I work with a plant that is called Arabidopsis thaliana. This plant is a model organism, meaning that it is the standard plant that many labs study around the world. Thanks to that, we can share information on our research and help each other to achieve our objectives.

At the moment I’m trying to decode the function of a novel family of genes. Nobody knows what is their function yet. Therefore I will proceed to make transgenic plants for my research. I will change these genes in the plant in order to modify their function in the growing plant. Genes work like light switches: the plants switch them on or of when they need it. In the lab, I can switch off the gene forever (knock out) or keep it always on (over expression). Finally, I can deduce how these genes work by observing what happens in the plant when they are not working or they’re working too much.