Postdoc
Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms Department

Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn
Villa Comunale
80121 Napoli - Italia
Tel.: +39 3272603259
E-mail: gabriele.defalco(at)szn.it

Supervisor: Dr. Sabrina Carrella

Appointed on project: Overespressione di microRNA in Phaeodactylum tricornutum: un approccio per la modulazione dell’espressione genica.

Curriculum Vitae

Research Interests

Microalgae have been considered as an alternative sustainable resource due to their abundance of bioactive compounds (TAGs, PUFAs, carotenoids etc…), due to their high photosynthetic efficiency, and to no arable land requirement. Indeed, they are widely used, for instance in the pharmaceutical industry, or for the production of biofuels. So, how to improve the content or productivity of such bioproducts has become one of the most urgent challenges. From this point of view, one of the limiting factors is the lack of knowledge in the processes of gene expression regulation in microalgae. For this reason, studying microRNA of Chlamydomonas sp. will help to understand regulation of important metabolic pathways through RNA interference. Tasks include: extraction of RNA, miRNOme analysis by Illumina sequencing, evaluation of the RNA Integrity Number, functional characterization of miRNA using bioinformatic tools, creation of a database.