Dr. Andrea Ghirardo

Dr. Andrea Ghirardo has an interdisciplinary background. He graduated in biotechnology at the University of Turin, Italy, studying biology, chemistry, and medicine, and additionally obtained a M.Sc. in biochemistry at the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen, studying the cereal crop wheat using proteomics and multivariate statistics. In 2010, he received his Ph.D. at Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany, where he studied the biosynthesis and regulation of climate-relevant Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) and ecophysiology using stable isotope techniques. The studies were performed at the Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. He continued with a post-doctoral fellowship from von Thünen Institute for Forest Genetics, Germany, to study at HMGU the herbivory-resistant oaks using metabolomics. Between 2011-2014, he was a post-doc at HMGU, Germany, to work on sustainable bioenergy production to support the bioeconomy. In 2014, he became a senior scientist; since 2019 he has led the Environmental Simulation and Phenomics group.

Andrea’s research focuses on understanding the chemical communications among plants or ecosystems, and the interactions between the biosphere and the atmosphere based on measurements and environmental simulation experiments of reactive air compounds and greenhouse gases. His chief research interests are the VOCs, their biosyntheses, regulations, functions, and origins. His research interests span a variety of topics, including insect- and microbe-plant interactions, the impacts of climate on plant fitness, ecosystem CO2 fluxes, carbon allocation, metabolomics, phenotyping.

The group runs the phytotron, sun simulators,  greenhouse, and plant phenotyping platforms and simulates climate scenarios, including atmosphere concentrations of CO2, O3, and NOx, to study the environmental effects on selected ecosystems. Experiments often aim to study climate-driven abiotic effects (UV, drought, flooding, warming, increasing CO2, O3, NOx, salinity, climate extreme) and biotic (parasites and pathogen) stresses on plants. The experiments use -omics tools and stable isotope labeling (13C, 15N) to understand the complex mechanisms beyond plant fitness and interactions with stress(es) at molecular levels. The studies are interdisciplinary and collaborated with national and international partners to understand the biosphere-atmosphere interaction and the mechanisms of plants to acclimate to climate.

MetabolomicsVolatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)Stable IsotopeGas-ExchangeClimate Simulation