MOLECULAR GENETIC MECHANISMS OF ADAPTATION TO THE ENVIRONMENT

Organisms, their morphology, their history, their activities, their potentialities are the product of complex interactions between their genetic background and the environment. If the environment changes, also the characteristic of the organisms change. The main objective of the course is to understand, from the molecular point of view, the response of the organisms, in particular plants, to different biotic and abiotic stresses.
The competences that the student will acquire will be theoretical and methodological (II Dublin descriptor). Starting from these knowledge we will analyse some biotechnological approaches in agronomic field to obtain cultures more resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses and in the environmental field to utilise organisms as biosensors for the environmental pollution.
This course is based on new and evolving knowledge’s in the field and at this purpose it will give to the students the instruments (such as scientific papers showing recent experiments in the fields) to be able to acquire confidence in the different subjects (Dublin descriptors III, IV, V). The student will also be encouraged to perform researches by himself on a specific subject of interest to implement its knowledge capacity in the field.