Maurizio Abbati Graduated in International Law at Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna with a thesis prepared at Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London and University of Southampton. He got two 2nd Level Masters’ Degrees respectively in: 1. International Relations and 2. Sustainable Development, Circular Economy, Environmental Management and Eco-Communication with relevant European workshops in Sweden; France; Finland and Spain. He held conferences and courses at: Venice International University; Krakow Italian Cultural Institute & Jagiellonian University of Krakow (Economy Faculty), University of Bologna and Centre for Economics, Energy and Environmental Policy (IEFE) within Bocconi University. He is the author of “Communicating the Environment to Save the Planet, a Journey into Eco-Communication” published by Springer International Publishing, and several essays and technical articles on sustainability, energy efficiency and eco-communication. He has been working for more than six years as multilingual journalist and communication specialist with a special focus on corporate social responsibility.
Lecture: Flora calls for communication to bloom eco-responsibility in corporate business management.
E-mail: mabbati77@gmail.com
Lisa Alexander (PhD) is a Research Geneticist at the United States Department of Agriculture and Lead Scientist for the Project “Functional Genomics, Genetic Improvement, and Sustainable Production of Nursery Crops”, which is housed at the Otis L. Floyd Nursery Research Center in McMinnville, Tennessee, USA. Dr. Alexander conducts genetics and breeding studies in woody ornamental plants with the long-term goal of developing improved products for the nursery industry. Objectives include producing plants with disease resistance, superior ornamental traits, and tolerance to environmental stresses that are amenable to existing industry production practices. Genomic analyses in Hydrangea are used to create genetic maps, identify genes responsible for floral and disease resistance traits, and correlate molecular markers with traits for use in accelerated germplasm development.
Lecture: Genomic analysis of inflorescence development and double flowering in bigleaf hydrangea
Email: Lisa.Alexander@usda.gov
Prem Bhalla is a plant biotechnologist with an international reputation in genetic engineering and the tissue culture of crop plants. Her research has focused on discovering new knowledge that has strategic applications. She developed tissue culture technology for the Australian native ornamental plants, Scaevola. She reported the world’s first report of a successful tissue-culture-based micropropagation system for Macadamia. She developed the world’s first hypoallergenic grass and led to the discovery of a genetic ‘switch’ that can be turned on or off to alter the development of male gametic cells. Her current research focus is on developing climate-resilient crop plants that can sustain normal reproduction and seed set under drought and heat stress conditions. She has published extensively in major scientific journals across the fields of plant reproduction and development, horticulture biotechnology, genetic engineering of crop plants, and pollen allergy, and was awarded the Royal Society of Victoria’s Medal for Excellence in Scientific Research.
Lecture: noncoding Genome: Controlling plant morphology and flowering
Email: premlb@unimelb.edu.au
Rodrigo Barba-Gonzalez, Biologist (PhD), senior researcher at the Plant Biotechnology Department of the Center for Research and Assistance in Technology and Design of the State of Jalisco (CIATEJ, Guadalajara, Mexico). The focus of our research is to obtain new ornamental crops from wild species. It involves research in reproductive biology, molecular biology and cytogenetics. We use interspecific hybridization, tissue culture and polyploidization techniques in order to obtain new cultivars. Special attention is given to native species, where breeding programs are conducted to introgress desired characteristics from wild species to ornamental crops, or to produce completely new cultivars from wild species. Some examples include the genus Polianthes, Eustoma and Sprekelia.
Lecture: From wild species to ornamental crops. A never-ending story
E-mail: rbarba@ciatej.mx
Michelle Jones (PhD) - Professor and D.C. Kiplinger Floriculture Endowed Chair in the Department of Horticulture and Crop Science at the Ohio State University. The goal of our research in floriculture crop improvement is to delay senescence and improve postproduction stress tolerance as well as to improve crop quality while minimizing chemical inputs. Recent research has focused on identifying how the rhizosphere microbiome in soilless culture systems (peat-based soilless media) is influenced by cultural practices and inputs including media pH, fertilizer and plant growth regulators. We have developed a pipeline to identify beneficial bacteria from greenhouse production systems, screen them for growth promoting characteristics, and phenotype growth responses when plants are inoculated with plant growth promoting bacteria. This pipeline has included the use of digital plant phenotyping with the TraitFinder (Phenospex) Greenhouse system.
Lecture: Sustainable production of greenhouse ornamentals using plant growth promoting bacteria.
Email: Jones.1968@osu.edu
Edgar Krieger has extensive experience in the field of Intellectual Property Protection for plant innovation and has held the position of the CIOPORA Secretary General since 2004. Before CIOPORA, Edgar worked as a lawyer at an international law firm specializing in IP protection, particularly Plant Breeders' Rights, advising agricultural breeders in several hundred court cases up to the European Court of Justice. Edgar holds a law degree from the University of Bonn and a degree in business administration from the Aachen University of Applied Sciences. He completed his doctoral dissertation on the topic "Farmers' Exemption in Germany" at the Philipps University of Marburg. His lecture will focus on the UPOV Plant Breeders Rights system, which is the tailormade system for the protection of new plant varieties, and how UPOV responds to the breeders’ requests and to the new challenges brought by the advent of new breeding techniques, the climate change, the ongoing globalization and the demand of the consumers for sustainable production.
Lecture: Sustainability in ornamentals needs effective protection of Intellectual Property
E-mail: edgar.krieger@ciopora.org
Rossana Porta Consultant for Plant Designer and Soft Landscaper with a 25 years experience collaborating with many leading landscape companies, architects, garden designers, plant nurseries and prestigious institutions like Royal Horticultural Society and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. A keen Plants woman, profesional Horticulturalist well traveled with training and with wide experience in Italy, USA, Taiwan, Israel, Japan, S. Africa and mostly Kew garden, UK. With an extensive 20 years experience in creating and implementing temporary show gardens for special events, including RHS Chelsea and Hampton Court Palace Flower Shows, taking the head lead for planting and designing. Gained role of RHS Judge and Orticolario Judge.
Lecture: Ornamentals boost biodiversity and sustainability in gardens
Email: rossanaporta.work@gmail.com
Flavio Sapia graduated in Agriculture Science, and began his work as a breeder in 1975. His first breeding work was carried out on carnation under the guidance of his uncle, Giacomo Nobbio, an internationally renowned breeder. In 1984 he founded a propagation nursery and in 1993 the breeding company Hybrida, extending its breeding work to numerous other ornamental species.. In 2009, together with Colombian partners, he founded the Colombian company “Natura breeders” with the aim to breed and select in Equatorial climates. Passionate about mountaineering and the Alps flora, he has often used botanical species for crossbreeding aimed at obtaining new products and/or to introduce new features in classical floriculture products.
Lecture: Short notes on breeding using botanical species to produce innovative ornamental products
E-mail: sapia@hybrida.it
Jan Schaart (Dr.) is scientist New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBT) at the Plant Breeding group of Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Netherlands. During his PhD he worked on designing the concept of cisgenesis, now known as a NPBT of interest. Since 2010 he has been active in several research projects aimed at targeting mutagenesis using Zinc Finger Nucleases, TALENs and nowadays CRISPR-Cas in a variety of crops, including the ornamental species chrysanthemum, carnation and alstroemeria. Other projects he is working on aim to break through the recalcitrance in regeneration and transformation present in many species and genotypes, to solve a major bottleneck in the application of NPBTs.
Lecture: Gene editing to support breeding in ornamental species
E-mail: jan.schaart@wur.nl