Francesca De Leo

Biography

"a) Education: March 1993 Degree in Biological Sciences, Summa cum Laude at the Dpt. of Bioch. and Mol. Biol. of the Uni. of Bari, discussing a thesis in Mol.Biol. on “Amplification and cloning of two regions of mtDNA isolated from the cytoplasm male sterile line CMS89 coding for the orf522 gene"". 07 May 1998 PhD award in Molecular Biology (supervisor prof. R. Gallerani) discussing a thesis on “Characterization of mt-2 gene expression and its transfer in model plants”. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology-University of Bari-Italy. Languages: Italian (Native), English, French b) Current professional Status: December 2001 Researcher-Institute of Biomembrane and Bioenergetics (IBBE)-CNR-Bari-Italy. Professional experience and former research interests (with dates) 1992-93 Degrees Thesis in Biological Science working on the characterization of the sunflower mt genome involved in the cytoplasmic male sterility (in Prof. R. Gallerani’s lab- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology University of Bari (I)) November 1994-1997 Ph.D. fellowship on Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Bari-Italy. Tutor: Prof. Raffaele Gallerani. The researcher studies the interaction plant-insects mediated by plant proteinase inhibitors. Nov1996 One year CIB (Italian Consortium Biotechnology) fellowship to study the effect of the transfer of plant proteinase inhibitor genes to model plants (in Dr. L. Jouanin’s lab-Laboratoire de Biologie Cellulaire, INRA Versailles, (F)). March 1998 Four months short term Fellowship at the Enichem of Metaponto (Matera (I)) to isolate genes involved on fatty acid metabolism in industrial crops. October 1998 One year INRA post-doctoral research fellowship to perform bioassays with insects on plants (in Dr. L. Jouanin’s lab-Laboratoire de Biologie Cellulaire, INRA Versailles, (F)). March 1999 Two years Post doctoral research fellowship of Minister of Scientific Research of Italy to study the expression of proteinase inhibitors in plants after their induction (in Prof. R. Gallerani’s lab- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology University of Bari (I)) March 2001 Research Associate University of Bari, Dept of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Bari (I) to study the adaptation of insects to proteinase inhibitors. "

Research Interest

"Transfer technology, dissemination and exploitation; • Identification and characterization of genes coding for bioactive compounds; • Research on novel processes to develop functional food: use of bioactive peptides produced by recombinant technologies to prepare functional food to prevent hypertension; • Scientific Committee for ILO-Project (“Creare impresa e diffondere tecnologia a partire dalla ricerca - Programma Operativo per la fase 2 del Progetto ILO2”, cofinanziato dall’UE a valere sul PO FESR 2007-2013, Asse I, Azione 1.2.3.) The research expertises concern mainly the area of molecular biology applied to plant and micro organisms and the methodologies used for are in details listed below: o Bioinformatics tools for sequence and structural analysis; o Plant cellular biology; o Site directed Mutagenesis; o Recombinant protein expression and purification in bacteria and yeasts; o Protein isolation by protein-protein based affinity chromatography. o Enzyme inhibition; o Real Time PCR; o Proteomic approach for target protein/enzyme identification"