Marco Maccaferri

Graduation with honor at UNIBO in crop physiology, “Evaluation of F4 progenies of maize for their abscisic acid content and related agronomic and physiological traits” (mentor: Prof. Maria Corinna Sanguineti).

PhD in “Seed science and Technology” at UNITO, “Genetic relationships in durum wheat: a comparison among the molecular, morphological and genealogical data” using a collection of elite durum wheat cultivars from durum wheat breeders world-wide. I visited NIAB, Cambridge, UK, (head: Dr. Paolo Donini) to learn fingerprinting techniques.

I’ve been engaged at UNIBO and UC Davis. I managed a five years collaboration with Produttori Sementi Bologna-Syngenta for marker-assisted selection in wheat (PI, Prof. Roberto Tuberosa). In 2012 I visited UC Davis, Triticeae T-CAP project (PI Prof. Jorge Dubcovsky) to evaluate spring wheat for grain yield potential, drought and stripe rust. A GWAS study using 1,000 spring wheat accessions was completed (2015, G3). I’ve developed a SNP-based consensus map for durum wheat (2016, PBJ) and co-authored the first genome assembly of wild emmer wheat (Avni et al. 2017, Science).