Laura Morello

My formation years were mainly dedicated to animal cell biology, studiyng signal transduction of growth factors, and particulary its regulation by phospho/deposphorylation. I later switched to plant biology, trasnferring my expertises and making pioneering stydies on Calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPK) and their role in stress response. My interest was then focussed on the trascriptional regulation by promoters, leader sequences and also introns, using CDPK and tubulin gene sequences using transgenic rice as experimental tool. Gene family evolution was another topic. Tubulin introns provided also the bases for the development of a molecular marker, Tubulin-based polymorphism (TBP) that proven very useful in species delimination in different plant family. The molecular tool was applied both in biodiversity reasearch, and in the determination of the botanical composition of feed and food, in the field of food authenticity. Lastly, my main interst is to explore duckweed (Lemnaceae) biodiversity and to the elucidate their still uncomplete taxonomy and phylogenesis by genotyping.