Ph. D. Student
Dipartimento di Biologia ed Evoluzione Organismi Marini
Tel.: +39 081 5833346
Fax: +39 081 7641355
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Contatto Skype: crazy_cla93
Directors of Studies: Enrico D’Aniello, Francesco Regoli
Internal Supervisor: Graziano Fiorito
Program: Ph. D. course in: “Life and evironmental sciences” – Curriculum: “Marine Biology and Ecology”, Università Politecnica delle Marche, XXXIV Cycle
Research Interests
Environmental-induced phenotypic plasticity represent a critical factor of organismal adaptation to a changing environment and therefore understanding the mechanisms underlying this plasticity represent a very important question in basic biology to reveal critical aspect of the interaction between organism and environment.
Among various mechanisms responsible to induce phenotypic plasticity in marine metazoan, epigenetic modifications affecting gene expression often enables rapid reaction of an organism to environmental changes.
My research interests are related to investigate the cause-effect relationship between specific environmental factors and epigenetic modifications triggering adaptive response. During my PhD I will focus on the study of Environmental Epigenetic in the marine organism Mytilus galloprovincialis representing an ideal animal sentinel for environmental monitoring studies in aquatic habitats particularly in coastal areas where they show a strong resistance to different pollutants. Therefore, the goal of this PhD project will be to determine the role of DNA methylation during developmental and adult stages of M. galloprovincialis and to investigate if exposure to specific Emerging Contaminants (ECs) has persistent epigenetic effects on the phenotype of this species. Understanding the potential epigenetic alterations following exposure to specific pharmaceutical contaminants or combination of them could have important implications to predict and better understand the effects of toxicant exposure at the individual, population and ecological levels.
