Rodolfo Bernardi

February 1984: University Degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Pisa. April 1986 – March 1988: fellowship on Agricultural Genetics funded by Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Rome). July 1989 – September 1990: fellowship at the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Durham, (UK) with a grant of the National Research Council (C.N.R., Italy). January 1991: winner of a Final Reward from the C.N.R. for the research activity. November 1992 – May 1995: training in England at the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Durham, with a PhD grant of the University of Pisa (Italy) and a two-year fellowship for studies in Agricultural Genetics funded by Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Rome). October 1994: PhD. in Agricultural Biology with a. thesis entitled « Coding genes for the storage proteins in Phaseolus coccineus L." February 1997: researcher at the Department of Agricultural Plant Biology, Genetics section, University of Pisa (Italy).

From 1999 to 2004: teacher of "Complements of Genetic Biotechnologies" at the University of Pisa. From 1999 to 2004: teacher of "Laboratory Methodologies for Genetic Biotechnologies" at the University of Pisa. From 2002 to 2005: teacher of "Genetic improvement with recombining DNA techniques" at the University of Pisa. From 2006 to 2012: teacher of "Molecular Biology" at the University of Pisa. From 2012 to 2013: teacher of "Biotechnologies for Plant Breeding" at the University of Pisa. Since 2013: teacher of "Genetic Biotechnologies" at the University of Pisa. Since 2020: teacher of "Principles of Molecular Biotechnology" at the University of Pisa.

Since November 2017 he is the Vice-President of the master's degree courses of "Food biosafety and quality" and "Plant and microbe biotechnologies"

Dr. Bernardi was responsible for research programmes supported by grants from Italian Ministry of the Education of the University and Research (MIUR), and participating in a research programme supported by grant from MIUR.
Dr. Bernardi’s research activity is evidenced by papers appeared on international scientific journals. The major research projects are: i) gene regulation of the storage proteins biosynthesis in several agricultural plants, ii) construction of cDNA and genomic libraries for the study of gene expression induced by abiotic and biotic stresses in several crops iii) identification of cultivars by biochemical and molecular methods.
In recent years the researches were aimed at the study of differential gene expression induced by several stress: i) heavy metal stress on in vitro tissue cultures of Nicotiana glauca; ii) ozone stress by exposition to realistic doses of ozone in Populus clones and in cultivars of Phaseolus showing different responses to treatment, in Salvia officinalis; iii) cold stress in Olea europaea and Populus alba; iv) fungal pathogens stress by using: 1) the cerato-platanin, a protein that is produced by the fungus Ceratocystis platani in Platanus acerifolia, 2) cerato-populin, a protein that is produced by the fungus Ceratocystis populicola in Populus sp. Recently, the research has been also aimed at the study of the biocontrol of Fusarium head blight (FHB) by means of the application of beneficial fungus: Trichoderma gamsii.