On November 9, 2021, on the occasion of the second annual Academic Meeting, Matteo Lorito and Marco Tavani will hold their inaugural opening, as new members of the Academy. “Frontiers of astrophysics and high energy” is the theme of Marco Tavani, President of the National Institute of Astrophysics. Matteo Lorito, Professor of Plant Pathology and Phytopathological Biotechnology and Rector of the University of Naples “Federico II” will talk about “Micro-farmers who make agricultural production more sustainable”.
Marco Tavani deals with theoretical and observational astrophysics of galactic and extra-galactic sources, origins of cosmic rays, gamma-raybursts, theories of particle acceleration, counterparts of gravitational wave sources and neutrinos, flashes of fast acceleration of particles in astrophysical systems : gamma flare of the Crab Nebula and gamma emission from galactic and extragalactic black holes. Principal investigator since 1997 of the AGILE space mission of ASI, a scientific satellite for high energy astrophysics in orbit since 23 April 2007. Since 2020 he has been President of INAF.
Matteo Lorito has made important contributions to the study of plant-environment-micro / macro organisms interactions, a central problem in the field of natural sciences. In particular, his studies are focused on: identification and characterization of genes in fungi capable of controlling plant diseases and in fungi and bacteria antagonists of molecular factors capable of enhancing their effect against pathogens, genetic improvement of beneficial fungal strains, identification of antibiotic molecules produced by microorganisms and plants with the creation of new products for the fight against parasites, isolation of new strains of microorganisms capable of reducing the use of pesticides, production of new formulations to decontaminate the soil from arsenic and cyanide, studies on the functions of the microbiota associated with plant roots. Matteo Lorito has been Rector of the “Federico II” University of Naples since 2020.
