Latest Academic Works
Strontium isotope composition: : insights into geological and environmental influences on the provenance studies of dairy products and timber
This dissertation aimed to explore the potential of Sr isotope ratio analysis, combined with multi-elemental profiling, as a tool for geographic discrimination, focusing on two projects: tracing the provenance of cheese/milk from Naxos, Greece (Project 1), and wood in the Eastern Carpathians, Romania (Project 2). The goal was to understand …
Micro and nano plastic in agriculture: interactions with pesticide residues and bioaccumulation in plants
A large body of data now exists demonstrating the influence of micro and nano plastics (MNPs) on living systems, and their detection has been documented across various ecosystems, including organisms that form part of the human diet. Nevertheless, up till now, a substantial portion of that research has been confined …
Biotechnological production of insect sex pheromones and potato virus Y infectious clone as tools in plant protection
Rising demands for food, instigated by population growth and urbanization, are calling for advanced agricultural approaches to increase crop yields. However, the expansion of food production should not come with an unmanageable environmental cost. Plant science is therefore challenged to provide sustainable innovations for combating the detrimental effects of unfavourable …
Development and employment of untargeted and targeted tools for virus detection in the frame of water-based epidemiology
Traditional methods of studying viruses are limited in their ability to detect novel pathogens, but recent advances in high-throughput sequencing (HTS) are changing that. HTS allows researchers to probe deeply into the virome of various hosts and environments, identifying known and unknown viral species. However, a targeted approach, like quantitative …
Surface modifications of cellulose nanomaterials: mechanisms, kinetics and their applications
Synthesized in green plants, cellulose is the most abundant natural biopolymer on the planet and is thus widely available, cheap and renewable. Furthermore, its hierarchical structure allows extraction of nanosized particles in the form of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), obtained with hydrolysis or cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs), isolated through chemical, biological pretreatment …
Unravelling the molecular mechanisms of plant-pathogen interactions in grapevine and potato through functional analysis
Plants are constantly exposed to various environmental stressors. Pathogen infections causing disease can affect economically important crops and impact global food production. To counter disease development and spread, it is imperative that we acquire a thorough knowledge of its pathogenesis, as well as of the mechanisms underlying plant immune response. …
Characterization of plant viromes using different viral nucleic acids enrichment strategies and high-throughput sequencing platforms
Plant viruses are very important plant pathogens, causing economic losses by infecting cultivated plants, causing diseases, and consequently reducing crop quality and quantity. In recent years, the development of high throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies has dramatically broadened the possibilities for plant virus research and diagnostics, enabling the discovery of new …
Diversity of viruses infecting tomato and weed plants in agroecosystems
Viruses, satellite viruses, viroids, virusoids, and satellite nucleic acids (herewith, referred to collectively or in part as ‘viruses’) comprise the virosphere and are perhaps the most diverse and abundant, yet still under-sampled, microbes on Earth. They are primarily regarded as pathogens or parasites of their eukaryotic or prokaryotic hosts. In …
Selenocompounds in selenium-enriched plants determined by spectrometric methods
Selenium (Se) has been demonstrated to be an essential trace element for maintenance of animal and human health. Se is incorporated into proteins to make selenoproteins, which are important antioxidant enzymes. The antioxidant properties of selenoproteins help to prevent cellular damage caused by radicals. Radicals are natural by-products of oxygen …