I am currently a Research Assistant at the Structural Biology Initiative, ASRC CUNY (New York, USA), where I manage the laboratory and lead research on the structural biology of plant protein complexes. This role combines technical expertise with scientific exploration, advancing knowledge of plant molecular biology.
From 2022 to 2024, I worked as an Assistant Professor – Researcher (RtdA) at the University of Padova (Italy). My project, “Compost for Healthy Plants” (in collaboration with SESA S.p.A.), investigated how compost-derived amendments influence soil microbiota, plant microbiota, growth, and overall plant health. This experience strengthened my interest in sustainable agriculture and plant–microbe interactions. evolve across plant lineages?
In 2024, I was a Visiting Scientist at Universidad de Antioquia (Medellín, Colombia), hosted by Prof. Natalia Pabon Mora, within the EU-funded MSCA H2020 RISE EVOfruland project. I participated in fieldwork in the páramo ecosystem, collecting parasitic plants such as Gaiadendron and Tristerix, to study their evolutionary biology.
My research career has been strongly tied to the University of Padova’s Botanical Garden and Department of Biology, where I held multiple postdoctoral and research fellowships (2015–2021). These projects ranged from:
– Investigating ovule and seed coat development in Ginkgo biloba;
– Exploring reproductive structures of early-diverging angiosperms (Nymphaea caerulea, Trithuria submersa) through transcriptomics and functional genetics;
– Conducting DNA barcoding of Cycadales to verify plant identification and classification;
– Characterizing fungi from the historic Saccardo collection using advanced molecular techniques.
Earlier, I collaborated with the New York Botanical Garden (USA, 2021–2022), hosted by Dr. Barbara Ambrose. Within the EVOfruland project, I investigated regulatory genes involved in the development of arils (fleshy fruit-like structures) and ovules in Taxus baccata, contributing to understanding evolutionary parallels between gymnosperms and angiosperms.
During my PhD, I expanded my expertise abroad as a Visiting Scientist at Wageningen University and Research (Netherlands, 2014), working with Prof. Leo van Overbeek. There, I engineered bacterial endophytes with GFP markers to track colonization in plant roots, combining microbiology and molecular biology approaches.
Sebastiano Nigris 