1 University of Pisa (UNIPI) - Italy

Beneficiary Legal Name:  1 - University of Pisa (UNIPI) - Italy

Role - Coordinator

https://www.agr.unipi.it

General Description

The University of Pisa was founded in 1343. It is one of the most renowned universities in Italy consisting of 20 Departments, with high level research centres in the sectors of agriculture, physics, computer science, engineering, human and veterinary medicine. According to international rankings, UNIPI ranks 9th among the Italian Universities (Italian University Ranking 2019). UNIPI has been involved in 78 H2020 projects (10 as coordinator), representing an EU contribution of 19 Million Euros.

In FIGGEN UNIPI will coordinate and manage the project (WP0) and is represented by two different teams of Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment (DAFE). The first team includes experts in agricultural economics, market research, participatory management of innovation and learning with involvement of stakeholders and will participate to WP1 (Participatory assessment of the potential of fig genotypes). The second team includes experts in plant structural and functional genomics, genotyping using molecular markers, molecular biology and bioinformatics; it will be involved in genotyping and Genome Wide Association Studies (WP2 and WP3). Recently, this team sequenced and annotated the whole genome sequence of the fig tree (Ficus carica, cv Dottato) that will be used as reference in genotyping analyses.

Key persons

Prof. Tommaso Giordani (male) (FIGGEN Coordinator). Associate Professor in Biotechnologies for Plant Breeding, author or co-author of 96 scientific articles, with 1144 citations and h-index 21 (Google Scholar)

Prof. Andrea Cavallini (male). Full Professor in Plant Breeding.

Prof. Lucia Natali (female). Associate Professor in Plant Genetics.

Dr. Flavia Mascagni (female). Researcher in Genetics and Bioinformatics.

Prof Gianluca Brunori (male). Full Professor in Food Policy.

Dr. Tarek Allali (male). PhD student in Agricultural Economics

Dr. Michele Moretti (male). Researcher in Agricultural Economics

A list of 5 relevant publications

G. Usai, F. Mascagni, T. Giordani, A. Vangelisti, E. Bosi, A. Zuccolo, M. Ceccarelli, R. King, K. Hassani-Pak, L. Solorzano Zambrano, A. Cavallini and L. Natali. Epigenetic patterns within the haplotype phased fig (Ficus carica L.) genome. The Plant Journal, 2020, 102, 600.

A. Vangelisti, L. Solorzano Zambrano, G. Caruso, D. Macheda, R. Bernardi, G. Usai, F. Mascagni, T. Giordani, R. Gucci, A. Cavallini, L. Natali. How an ancient, salt-tolerant fruit crop, Ficus carica L., copes with salinity: a transcriptome analysis. Scientific Reports, 2019, 9, 2561.

L. Natali, A. Vangelisti, L. Guidi, D. Remorini, L. Cotrozzi, G. Lorenzini, C. Nali, E. Pellegrini, A. Trivellini, P. Vernieri, M. Landi, A. Cavallini, T. Giordani. How Quercus ilex L. saplings face combined salt and ozone stress: A transcriptome analysis. BMC Genomics, 2018, 19, 872.

G. Brunori, F. Galli, D. Barjolle, R. Van Broekhuizen, L. Colombo, M. Giampietro, ... & De Roest, K. . Are local food chains more sustainable than global food chains? Considerations for assessment. Sustainability, 2016, 8(5), 449.

G. Brunori, A. Rossi, S. D’Amico. A Comprehensive and participatory approach to the valorisation of biodiverse products. In: Food Diversity Between Rights, Duties and Autonomies (pp. 3-22), 2018, Springer, Cham.

A list of 5 relevant previous projects or activities, connected to FIGGEN

SUS-CHAIN – Improving Collective Performance of Food Supply Chains towards Sustainability. Programme Funding: European commission, FP5 (2003-2006)

DIVERSIFOOD – Embedding crop diversity and networking for local high-quality food systems. Programme Funding: Horizon 2020 (2015-2019)

FOODLINKS – Knowledge brokerage to promote sustainable food consumption and production: linking scientists, policymakers and civil society organisations. Programme Funding: European Commission, FP7 (2011-2013)

University of Pisa Research project – Genomics, physiology and defense of the fig tree (Ficus carica L.), an ancient species with great prospects” (2017)

University of Pisa Research project – Response to environmental stresses and eco-sustainable pest control of Ficus carica (2020).

Relevant Infrastructure or facilities

DAFE has all necessary infrastructures and technical equipments relevant to the proposed work: in particular, greenhouses and experimental fields are available, as well as a plant molecular biology lab and servers for bioinformatics analyses.