Team leader
Prof. Stefano Marchetti, associate professor of plant genetics

Scientists and student tutors 
Dott. Massimo Vischi, researcher
Dott. Carla Pappalardo, technician

PhD students
dr. Piero Cristin

Research
The research activity is focused on molecular farming of therapeutic molecules in plants, with particular attention to orphan drug compounds, metabolic disease-related enzymes and patient-specific pharmaceuticals. For the production of these target molecules, plants are engineered and used in compliance with human safety issues and environmental protection. Experiments are devoted to develop plant expression systems exploitable by industry in the large-scale production of target molecules. Main topics are the definition of the plant species which can most suitably be used as bioreactors, the determination of cellular compartments for best accumulation and storage of recombinant proteins, the optimization of transgene expression levels through natural and artificial promoters, natural and artificial 5’ UTRs, artificial coding sequences, different 3’ UTRs.

Lab facilities
Fully equipped molecular biology lab
Fully equipped protein biochemistry lab
Fully equipped in vitro plant cell, tissue and organ culture lab
Instruments for protein purification and characterization
Confined greenhouses

Topics offered for thesis

• Transcriptional pattern of artificial promoters in view of their use in molecular farming of plants.
• Regulatory effects on transgene expression exerted by leader composition and structure.
• Codon usage and DNA structure in the design of artificial coding sequences.
• Production of antibodies and antibodies fragments in plants.
• Production of human lysosomal enzymes in plants.