Alex Costa
professor of Plant physiology University of Milan
Alex Costa has been a Full Professor of Plant Physiology at the University of Milan since 2020, where he coordinates the UNITECH NOLIMITS bioimaging facility and serves as Director of the Nikon Center of Excellence for Plant Biology and Other Life Sciences. After obtaining his degree and PhD from the University of Padua, he carried out research in Italy, France, and the USA. In 2011, he joined the Department of Biosciences at the University of Milan as a researcher, and in 2014, he was a Visiting Scholar at Shinshu University in Japan. His research focuses on the mechanisms by which plants perceive and respond to environmental stimuli. In particular, he studies the role of calcium signals in intracellular and intercellular communication and in adaptation to environmental stresses, developing innovative tools to visualise these processes. His work contributes to understanding how to improve plant resilience to climate change.
Past talks
Sat. 26 September
at 18:00 - 19:15
18:00 - 19:15
Saturday 26 September
Area Talk 2
Piazza Unità d'Italia, 34121, Trieste, TS
Piazza Unità d'Italia, 34121, Trieste, TS
TRIESTE
Plants are capable of perceiving a wide range of environmental stimuli, responding with growth and development processes coordinated by sophisticated chemical and physical signaling mechanisms. Thus, they sometimes give the impression of making somewhat-conscious 'choices', despite not possessing a brain. The use of terms such as ‘behaviour’, ‘learning’, and‘cognition’ when applied to the plantworld contributes to the popularization of the concept that plants possess a form of intelligence, but experimental evidence supporting this conclusion is still lacking.
Location: Area Talk 2 - Piazza Unità d'Italia, 34121, Trieste
speakers
