PhD Student
Ecosustainable Marine Biotechnology Department
Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn
Villa Comunale
80121 Napoli - Italia
Tel.: +39 3272603259
E-mail: gabriele.defalco(at)szn.it
Contatto Skype: gab.defalco
Director of Studies: Sabrina Carrella
Internal Supervisor: Chiara Lauritano
External Supervisor: Sandro Banfi
Program: Open University, XXXVIII cycle, Dottorato in “MicroRNA-mediated environmental adaptation in marine microalgae: from physiological responses to biotechnology applications”.
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.
