I was born in Milan, Italy and I lived and studied there until I was 22 years old. While taking my bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology at University of Pavia (Italy), I took part to the Erasmus programme and spend some time abroad at University of Aveiro (Portugal). Since I feel in love with Aveiro, its university and the Portuguese way of living, I decided to continue my studies in this beautiful city. In 2019, I moved to Portugal, where I then obtained the master’s degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Aveiro. My master dissertation explored the existence of a putative “haloazolisins” gene cluster in the haloarchaea Haloferax mediterranei. After that, I decided to move from the microbial word to other organisms and photosynthetic sea slugs, also known as “crawling leaves”, called my attention. Currently, I am enrolled in the PhD programme in Biology at University of Aveiro, developing my work within the project KleptoSlug. More specifically, I am trying to use my background in molecular biology to investigate the mechanisms behind kleptoplasty.

Keywords: kleptoplasty, Elysia, transcriptomics, molecular biology, photosynthesis.