During my PhD at Geisenheim Hochschule I worked on the verge between conservation, population genetics and transcriptomics with Arnica montana. I challenged my bioinformatic and academic skills in finding a method for testing for the evidence of local adaptation to climate in Arnica montana. This experience served as rigorous test for my academic skills and personal resilience, requiring me to navigate limited datasets and find a professional solution that would lead to publication. I also published as first author the results of a study focusing on population structure and postglacial colonization hypotheses. This project required me to oversee the work of master's students and collaborate internationally, enriching my project management and teamwork abilities, from the experimental design phase to the publication. The PhD was also the part of my academic pathway where I discovered my predisposition for the field of genomics and the bioinformatic medium. During my research project I acquired multiple skills, from wet lab skills to bioinformatic skills that span from genotyping to RNAseq pipelines, bash scripting and new AI tools testing. I find myself comfortable in this context and I am able to learn very quickly new methods independently.

Research project: Host-parasite coevolution between the opportunistic human pathogen P. aeruginosa and its specific bacteriophage DMS3vir: The role of CRISPR Cas immune system as inducible defence.Bacteria evolved several constitutive and inducible strategies to overcome bacteriophages. CRISPR-Cas immune system is an inducible immune system that works by including protospacer adjacent motifs (PAMs) of the phage into the bacterial CRISPR loci, enabling the system to recognise and cleave the pathogen DNA.The goal of this project is to understand how long-term interaction between host and parasite drives the evolution of different resistance strategies and test whether the frequency of subsequent phage exposure affects spacers diversity, driving to differential outcomes in the host vs parasite survival. In this project I set a long-term coevolution experiment between P. aeruginosa and DMS3vir. This experience has been a fundamental step in my educational pathway as a scientist as I gained strong knowledge in experimental design and lab techniques. Specifically, my role involved: Maintenance and transfer of bacterial cultures, PCR, DNA extraction and purification, electrophoresis, primer design, titration, DNA quality tests, streak assays, periodic presentations, collaboration with external institutes.