Francesco Vitali

Hello everyone! I am Francesco, 37, and I got a degree in Biology at the University of Florence (Italy) in 2011, followed by a PhD in Microbiology and Bioinformatics at the same university in 2014.

Before joining the EXCALIBUR team, I have been mainly working at the Italian National Research Council (CNR) for about 6 years, with activities connected to Microbial Ecology and Data Analysis. I have ventured into many projects, involving different matrices on which to study the microbiota and its diversity, changes, and dynamics. I started dealing with environmental issues in soil and harbour sediments (were I explored the connection between microbial community and specific typing of pollution pressure), then moved to the gut microbiota in health-related issues in humans (for example in relation to nutrition, or in relation to serious diseases like melanoma) and other animals (lab rat and insects).

In the EXCALIBUR team I am among the Bioinformaticians. I am mainly involved in WP1 and WP4 as a data analyst, but I also enjoy occasional field trips for sampling activities. Until present, I had the occasion to analyze the baseline community diversity data of the project and then to focus on some of its specific component, the microarthropods and the microbial community. I also contributed to the genomic and phenotypic characterization of some of the many strain used as inoculum in the trials of EXCALIBUR.