ENEA2 – Analytical labs for food quality, safety, authenticity & gamma-radiation plant

Is researcher at ENEA. Graduated with full marks in 2003 in Plant Biotechnology at the University of Naples “Federico II”, he achieved a PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Aquila in 2007. Since 2008, he has worked as a staff scientist at the ENEA and he has been responsible for the LC/GC-MS Metabolomics facility (2009-present). Since march 2022, he is Head of the Biotechnology Laboratory at ENEA, coordinating a series of metabolomics, plant metabolic engineering and new plant breeding techniques (NPBT) projects. He is particularly interested on investigating pathways and physiological roles of nutritional and anti-nutritional secondary metabolites, and to systems biology and large transcript/metabolite networks in more than 30 different plant agricultural systems. He has co-authored 70 papers (h-index = 27)

Is Head of the ENEA Laboratory for AgriFood Sustainability, Quality and Safety, and Professor of Food Microbiology, Masyter degree in Food Technology and Supply Chain Management, University Campus Bio-Medico of Rome, Italy. In 1997, she obtained her degree in Biological Science at “La Sapienza” University of Rome with the mark of 110/110 cum laude. In 2021, she achieved the National Scientific Qualification for the Italian title of Full Professor assigned by the national commissions ASN 2018-2020 in the scientific area: 05/I2 –Microbiology. She is author of more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and 200 communications at national and international conferences. She is a member of several scientific societies, Academic editor for Microorganisms, PlosOne and Frontiers in Microbiology, and correspondent member of the Georgofily Accademy, Florence. Scopus: ID: 6602516452; h-index:25.

M.Sc Degree in Chemistry, Master post lauream in Nuclear and Ionizing Radiation Technologies in 1999, obtained her Ph. D. degree in Materials Science and Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome in 2009. She is the Calliope gamma irradiation Facility Director and Head of the Innovative Nuclear Systems Laboratory (ENEA, FSN-FISS.SNI). Her main research experience is on gamma radiation effects on different materials (organic and inorganic matrices, polymers), dosimetry and gamma irradiation tests in different conditions. She is involved in national and international Projects and Programme and participates in several collaborations (Eurofusion, F4E, H2020, IAEA, ESA, ASI, CERN). She is author of more than 70 publications in international journals and 70 communications at national and international Conferences.

Has a Master’s Degree in Genomic Biotechnology and a PhD in Pediatric Sciences and is researcher at ENEA since 2021. Her main fields of interest are agrifood microbiology and biotechnology related to the safety, quality and sustainability of products and processes. The laboratory activities focus on validation and application of diagnostic methods for food safety; qualification of productions; analysis and assessment of microbiological transformations in production processes, processing, preservation and packaging; identification and quantification of components and quality markers in order to demonstrate authenticity and origin of the agricultural food productions and to ensure their traceability.

Is researcher at ENEA. Food technologist, with a PhD in Botanical Sciences, she carries out her activity in national and international research projects on the quality, safety, sustainability and eco-innovation of agroindustrial products and processes. She has acquired skills in the field of food microbiology through the application of both classical methods and innovative PCR/Real Time q-PCR molecular methods for the microbiological analysis of food; studies on the Shelf life of fresh or minimally-processed products; Microbial Challenge Test (MCT) in vitro and in vivo for the validation of processes. Her activities also concern the development and application of spectrophotometric and chromatographic methods (HPLC/GC) for the chemical-physical characterisation of plant and microbial species, applications in the food and non-food sector, in a circular economy perspective.

Is researcher at ENEA, graduated with full marks in 2005 as Master of Science in Biology at La Tuscia University (Viterbo, Italy) with a PhD in Plant Biotechnologies at La Tuscia University in 2010. From 2010 to 2018 she worked as post-doc at the ENEA Biotechnology Laboratory and since 2018 she is in the permanent staff. She has experience in the field of plant biotechnology, metabolic engineering and metabolomics, and she is involved in projects on the metabolic characterization of food matrix by LC-MS; identification and isolation of genes involved in high value secondary metabolites biosynthesis and compartmentalization in higher plants; production of bioactive molecules in plants and microorganisms. She co-authored more than 20 peer-reviewed published papers, with an h-index of 12 (Scopus).

Is researcher at ENEA since 2021. With Master's degree cum laude in Biology awarded in 2014 and Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (2019), her main research interests cover: agrifood microbiology and biotechnologies related to products and processes safety, quality and sustainability. Her research activities are focused on: soil and food microbiology; food safety, selection and characterisation of new strains from food and soil; extraction of bioactive compounds from agroindustrial waste by means of sustainable protocols; application of traditional microbiology methods and advanced ones (e.g. molecular, microscopy and flow cytometry-based) for the identification, characterisation and study of food and soil microorganisms.

Obtained her master’s degree in Physics at Roma Tre University of Rome in 2002. She worked as Fellow from 2003 to 2020 and as permanent position researcher since 2021 in the field of materials physics at ENEA. Since 2017 she works at Calliope gamma irradiation Facility and participates in research activities on gamma radiation damage on materials, dosimetric measurements and irradiation procedures in the frame of national and international research project (EUROfusion, F4E, H2020, IAEA, ESA, ASI, CERN, INFN). Since 2021 is Calliope irradiation plant operator and provides operational support to the Laboratory Manager in activity management. She is author of more than 35 international scientific publications and numerous participations in workshops and conferences.

Has completed his PhD in Physics on ultrafast-phenomena in heme-proteins in 2014, then continued his studies in the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia and University of Rome “Sapienza”. The main research topics are the study of ultrafast structural dynamics in photosensitive materials and Coherent Raman characterization of 2D materials. Using free electron laser sources, he has explored for the first time self-phase modulation of ultrashort pulses in the extreme ultraviolet. He is recently working in the gamma ray irradiation facility Calliope at ENEA. He has pubblished 28 papers with more than 600 citations in reputed journals, including Nat. Chem., Nat. Photon., Nat. Comm., PNAS and JACS. He organized ICONS (International sChool On Nonlinear vibrational Spectro-microscopy) with more than 100 participants.

Is researcher at ENEA from 2009. Graduated with full marks in 1998 as Biologist at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and obtained the PhD in 2007 at University of L'Aquila in “Cellular and Molecular Biology”. Her main interests are “omics” technologies (specially genomics, metagenomics and transcriptomics) with a particular focus on metabolic engineering and NPBT (new plant  breeding technologies) applied to improving  organoleptic  qualities in tomato, potato and saffron plants. She has worked on projects focused on structural genomic and  microbiome  characterization associated to plant matrices with high nutritional and health value. She has co-authored of more that 25 papers (h-index = 16.

Is researcher at ENEA. Graduated with full marks in 2010 in Biotechnology at Sapienza University (Rome, Italy); in 2014 she obtained the PhD in Plant Biology at Sapienza University (Rome, Italy). From 2015 to 2021 she worked as postdoc at the ENEA Biotechnology Laboratory and since may 2021 she is in permanent staff. Her research of interest is focused on plant secondary metabolism, in particular focused on isoprenoids in crop and aromatic species, and metabolomics. She has worked on projects focused on pathway discovery, bioprospecting and multilevel characterization (transcriptomics and metabolomics) of plant matrices with high nutritional and health value, with a particular interest towards data integration by bioinformatic approaches. She has co-authored 19 papers (total IF: 7.43; h-index = 8).

Is researcher at ENEA. Graduated with full marks in 1996 in Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture, he achieved a Phd in Agrobiotechnology for Tropical and Subtropical crop productions in 2001. His research activity is focused on vegetal biotechnology and controlled environment agriculture. He is responsible of several experimental facilities (e.g., containment greenhouse, phytotrons and clean rooms for plant growth in sterile environment). He participated to the development of new prototypes and collaborates in several  research projects financed by the Italian Space Agency aimed at the development of novel plant “ideotypes" and new cultivation systems able to support future space manned missions, as well as in projects aimed  at realizing container farms for the production of high quality microgreens to support the diet of urban residents and military personnel and for medical purposes.

Is PhD Student in Plant and Animal Production Sciences at ENEA in conjunction with the, Department of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences of the University of Tuscia. With a Master's degree in Food Science at University of Campus Bio-Medico di Roma (2021), her research activity focuses on: microbiology and food safety; culture-based, molecular and flow cytometry applications for assessment of bacterial physiology in food preservation processes and soil related microorganisms; study of the antimicrobial and probiotic potential of biomolecules recovered from by-products of the agrifood industry and their application in eco-sustainable and compostable packaging.

Is Research assistant at ENEA, PhD in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology and Dr. in Food Sciences and Human Nutrition. Specialist in the development and application of atomic spectroscopy and mass spectrometry techniques for the assessment of the quality and safety of raw materials and food products, the characterisation of primary production agroecosystems and the traceability of raw materials and products along the food chain. Expert in regulatory aspects related to the quality, safety and traceability of food and management and databases concerning both metrological tools (Reference Materials, official and reference methods, Proficienty Testings) and food composition.

M. Sc. in Physics at the University of Palermo, with PhD in Accelerator Physics at the Sapienza University of Rome and a PostDoc at the Frascati National Laboratories (LNF-INFN), is researcher at the Calliope gamma irradiation facility at ENEA with the following tasks: design and setup of irradiation tests with gamma radiation; application of optical and spectroscopic techniques in the dosimetric field and in the characterization of materials subjected to gamma irradiation; participation in the design, development and qualification of complex and innovative technological systems, in the nuclear, space, HEP and energy-environmental fields, taking care of their experimental implementation; operational support function to the Laboratory Manager in relation to the management of the laboratory itself.

Is researcher at ENEA since 2021. Graduated with full marks in 2011 in Genomic Biotechnologies at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, she achieved the Internetional PhD in Agrobiodiversity at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in 2015, and since 2016 worked as Postdoctoral Researcher at the ENEA-Biotechnologies and Agroindustry Division. Her major interests are Plant Metabolomics, Bio-fortification and Pathway Discovery, both investigating natural biodiversity and by plant metabolic engineering approaches.  Her focus is association studies of genetic resources leading to different distributions of secondary metabolites with nutrional/anti-nutritional value and bioactive compounds, in several crop plants and especially in Solanaceae. She is co-authored 8 papers.

Has a twenty year-long experience in materials’ science and a strong background in solid-state physics and radiation-matter interaction. Graduated in physics in 2002 at the University of L’Aquila, he got his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Padua in 2006 and then worked as postdoc and researcher in various universities and institutions in Italy and abroad with activities primarily focused on the investigation of the properties of ultrathin films and heterostructures through x-ray-based spectroscopic techniques. Since 2021, he isresearcher at the Calliope gamma irradiation facility at ENEA and is mainly involved in dosimetric measurements and in the characterization of the radiation effects on materials. He is co-author of more than 40 scientific publications.