Bella Italia

The plant epigenome is at the base of intraspecific variation and environmental adaptation. DNA methylation and histone modification patterns lead to chromatin alteration and transposable element (TE) silencing. To assess TE insertion polymorphisms, I am using PacBio HiFi reads for generating chromosome-level genome assemblies of different Arabidopsis thaliana accessions. I am integrating these genomes with epigenetic variation data from wildtypes and mutants defective for epigenetic pathways. This intersection will shed light onto chromatin and TE dynamics.

Research lines

  • Epigenetics
  • Transposable Elements
  • Long-read sequencing

Short vita

  • 2019 to present

    PhD student / Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen

  • 2019 to 2020

    Research assistant / University of Milan, Italy

  • 2017 to 2019

    MSc degree in Molecular Biology / University of Milan, Italy

Selected publications