Supervisor(s): Prof. Laura Pistelli and Dr. Barbara Ruffoni
Research Field: Agriculture, Food and Environment
Keywords: Biotechnology, In vitro culture, New Genomic Techniques, Histology
Headquarters address: Laboratory of Plant Physiology – Via Mariscoglio, 34 (Build. B61) Pisa
Michela Montone is a PhD student in Agricultural, Food, and Environment at the University of Pisa. She obtained a BS in ‘Herbal Science’ from the University of Salerno, Italy, in March 2020. In 2023, she achieved (cum Laude) an MS in ‘’Plant and Microbial Biotechnologies’’ at the University of Pisa, with a thesis about the evaluation of in vitro regeneration in Ocimum basilicum (sweet basil). Thanks to this research, in February 2024, she won an academic award of SOI (Società di Ortoflorofrutticoltura italiana) for the best MA thesis in “In vitro culture techniques supporting plant genetic improvement”. She aimed to understand the physiological and metabolic pathways of in vitro regeneration in plants, focusing on organogenesis and histological analysis. During 2023-2024, she worked at the Council for Agricultural Research and Economics Research (CREA) with a one-year grant for research on micropropagation and genetic characterization of ancient flowers of Liguria, focusing on the recovery and enhancement of biodiversity. In November 2024 she started the PhD program (40th cycle), and the main goal PhD research is to evaluate the response to salinity stress of ornamental and aromatic plants during different growing phases, by investigating of the mechanism of action of some bio-stimulants in in vitro conditions. The challenge is understanding the metabolic and genetic implications of biostimulants as active agents in the culture media or as priming agents to induce a “stress memory” in plants for future stress exposure.
