He was trained as a biologist at the University Federico II of Naples (Italy) and studied Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at the University of Algarve (Portugal). At the Centro de Ciências do Mar he contributed to several research projects. Two were focused on ecology and physiology of seagrasses and macroalgae. Then he shifted his interest towards microbiology, studying the ecology and diversity of the microbiome associated to macroalgae and marine sponges under natural and global warming conditions (heat weaves and ocean acidification) and to fish larvae of Sparus aurata under treatments of Asparagopsis Armata extracts. During that period, he also took part to two Assemble research campaigns: in Banyuls-sur-Mer (France) and in Ischia (Italy).
He concluded his PhD in January 2022 at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena (Germany). He studied the inter-kingdome interaction between the green macroalga Ulva mutabilis and the bacterium Maribacter sp. Integrated in the team, he continued the research on the elucidation of thallusin, compound released by the bacterium, and studied the thallusin effects on the molecular mechanisms occurring in Ulva during early growth developmental phase in axenic conditions, by performing transcriptomics and metabolomics. A parallel project included a collaboration with an aquaculture company for the characterization of the microbiome associated to Ulva under standard growing conditions.
Overall, its publication record includes 18 peer-reviewed articles and 2 book chapters (5 first authorships) with a h-index of 11 (google-scholar).
Currently, he has joined the FFGB group to work on the MiDiVine (Innovative Approaches Promoting Functional Microbial Diversity for a Sustainable Grapevine Health and Productivity in Vineyard Systems of Mediterranean Areas) project.