Recognizing Plant Physiology first authors: Elio Fantini
Elio Fantini, first author of Pivotal roles of cryptochromes 1a and 2 in tomato development and physiology
Current Position: Postdoctoral fellow at ENEA Trisaia, Italy
Education: Master’s Degree in Agriculture sciences and technologies, University of Pisa, Italy. PhD in Molecular, industrial and environmental biotechnology, University of Verona, Italy.
Non-scientific Interests: Playing with my daughter, reading, nature, physical activity
Brief bio: I was introduced to plant photoperception by my Master’s Degree tutor, Prof. Bartolomeo Lercari, at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Pisa, with a thesis on the productive characterization of tomato phytochrome mutants. During my PhD, I worked with Dr. Giovanni Giuliano on the molecular characterization of flowering time in wild tomato species and on reverse genetics techniques for tomato cryptochromes functional studies. Besides, I was involved in the tomato genome sequencing project. As post-doc, I applied VIGS reverse genetic approach for the study of lycopene biosynthetic pathway in tomato berries and of MYB transcription factors involved in anthocyanin biosynthesis in tomato leaves and stem. Now I’m back again on plant photoperception, applying what I learned in these years for the functional characterization of tomato and taraxacum cryptochromes.
