THE TEAM

Alessio's research currently deals with high-throughput phenotyping in livestock with particular emphasis on the applications of infrared-based and genomics tools for enhancing milk quality, health, and efficiency traits in dairy cattle. Alessio teaches courses on several topics of Animal Production, Animal Breeding and Genetics, and Applied Statistics within the School of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine and the PhD school of Animal and Food Science (University of Padova). He is also President of the 1st level University Degree in Animal Science and Technology. He is involved in the coordination of several National and International projects. He is a member of national (ASPA) and international (EAAP, ADSA) associations; he is Associate Editor of the Italian Journal of Animal Science and member of the Scientific board of Animal journal.

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Sara is a Researcher at the Department of Agronomy, Food, Natural resources, Animals and Environment (DAFNAE), University of Padova, Italy. She holds a master's degree in Food Biotechnology and a PhD in Veterinary Sciences from the same University.  Her research is mainly focused on the genetic control of complex traits related to the quality of animal products, and animal health and welfare, and on the application and integration of omic tools (e.g. genomics, transcriptomics, and phenomics) in animal breeding.

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Diana Giannuzzi is a  Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and Ph.D. in Veterinary Science at the University of Padua with expertise on performing Next Generation Sequencing (whole genome, exome, epigenome and transcriptome) data generation, management and analysis. Current research activities are focused on metabolic disease detection and prevention in dairy cows, phenotype prediction through milk infrared spectroscopy using machine learning, visualization and integration of genomic information to deepen the knowledge on diseases associated with dairy production and nutrition in cattle. Key skills are represented by medical background and Unix, R and Python programming applied to genomics.

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Vittoria holds a master’s degree in Biotechnologies for Food Science. She worked for three years as a fellow researcher before starting the PhD. Her work focuses on the evaluation of molecular and phenotypic traits for the improvement of milk quality and animal welfare in dairy cattle. Her expertise involve chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques (HPLC, GC, ICP-OES), as well as molecular biology (i.e. RNA Sequencing).

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Alessandro has a master’s degree in Biotechnology for Food Science. He worked for two years as fellow researcher and in October 2022 started the PhD in Animal and Food Science. During the years he developed skills in HPLC and gas chromatography, and use of bioinformatic tools for data analysis. At the moment he works on the impact of different feeding strategies for heavy pigs reared for production of high quality dry-cured ham and their microbiota characterization.

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Alice has a bachelor degree in Food Science and Technologies and a master degree in Biotechnologies for Food Science. She has worked for two years as a research fellow in Prof. Cecchinato’s group focusing on milk quality and udder health. During these years she has been involved in multiple activities, dealing with both wet lab and data analysis:

•  Determination of milk coagulation proprieties

• Determination of milk protein fractions by HPLC analyses

• Metabarcoding for the determination of microbial communities of milk, ruminal fluid and feces

•  Proteomics analyses of milk

In 2022 she has started the PhD in Animal and Food Science with a project that focuses on the application of omics technologies to different aspects related to animal welfare and sustainability of animal production, including the animal response to disease and the effects of precision livestock farming on the quality of animal products.

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Marco Aurelio is a veterinary professional specializing in animal genetics and breeding. He obtained a Master's Degree in Animal Genetics and Reproductive Biotechnology, during which he spent his second year at the University of Zaragoza under the supervision of Dr. Luis Varona. Currently, Marco is pursuing a Ph.D. in Animal and Food Science at the University of Padua. His doctoral research is centered around blood genetic traits and the analysis of milk cows using FTIR spectroscopy technology. The objective of his research is to identify and discriminate farm characteristics based on these analyses. 

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Nicolò Amalfitano is a post-doc with a Ph.D. in Animal and Food Science at the University of Padova and expertise in milk and dairy products quality (macro-nutrients composition and detailed protein, mineral, and fatty acid profiles) and cheese-making ability traits.  His recent research activity is focused on the study of dairy and meat products quality through the use of uni- and multivariate approaches. His primary skills are animal production science background and SAS, R, and Unix programming knowledge. 

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