Giulia Friso
Senior Research Associate/Senior Lecturer, School of Integrative Plant Science Plant Biology Section
Giulia Friso obtained her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Biology and her Ph.D in Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Padua (Italy). She was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Biochemistry at Imperial College, London (U.K.), and at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at U.C.S.F. in San Francisco. She also was a research scientist at the discovery unit of the Pharmaceutical Company AstraZeneca in Stockholm (Sweden). Giulia joined the Plant Biology Department at Cornell University in 2001, and is currently senior research associate and senior lecturer.
Visit Giulia Friso's Homepage for more information.
Interests
Ethnobotany, plants and health
Plant biochemistry and mass spectrometry
Cannabis
Recent Research
My current professional objective is to excel in mass spectrometry and the bioinformatics pipeline of data analyses applied to plant biology and in supervising, advising and training of others in the academic environment. I aim to work as close to the cutting edge of mass spectrometry, biochemistry, and bioinformatics and to follow and implement new developments and tools in plant biology. In that context I aim to be productive and contribute to efforts in obtaining federal funding.
Outreach and Extension Focus
- Take a tour of the medicinal plants section of the Cornell Botanic garden with me and Pamela Shade
- Listen to my Podcast interview on Ethnobotany "Nature's prescription" from the Cornell series State of the pod,
2016 Faculty Institute on Community-Engaged Learning and Teaching (CELT)
2016 Institute and scholarship, C.U.
2016 Faculty Institute for Diversity, C.U.
2016 Global Learning Institute and workshops, C.U.
2017 Group Work Institute, C.U.
2018 Flipping the classroom workshop, C.U.
2018 Engaged Cornell Opportunity Grant - Bring a wide range of community engaged initiatives to life “Chief Sam George of the Cayuga Nation in the Cornell classroom”
2023 Engaged Cornell Opportunity Grant - Nutrition & Longevity from Farm to Table A collaboration with Harlem Grown and Dr. Michelle Loy (Weill Cornell)
Publications
View profile and publications on Google Scholar.
Selected journal articles
- Jui-Yun, RL, Friso G, Forsythe SE, Williams AM, Michel EJ, Buraraev, SS, Ponnala L, Sloan D, van WIjk KJ. (2022) Proteomics, phylogenetics, and co-expression analyses indicate novel interactions in the plastid CLP chaperone-protease system. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2022 Mar;298(3):101609. doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2022.101609.
- Bhuiyan NH, Rowland E, Friso G, Ponnala L, Michel EJS, van Wijk KJ. (2020) Autocatalytic Processing and Substrate Specificity of Arabidopsis Chloroplast Glutamyl Peptidase Plant Physiol. 2020 Sep;184(1):110-129. doi: 10.1104/pp.20.00752
- Liao JR, Friso G, Kim J, van Wijk KJ. (2019) Consequences of the loss of catalytic triads in chloroplast CLPPR protease core complexes in vivo. Plant Direct. 2018 Oct 25;2(10):e00086. doi: 10.1002/pld3.86.
- Montandon C, Friso G, Liao JR, Choi J, van Wijk KJ. (2019) In Vivo Trapping of Proteins Interacting with the Chloroplast CLPC1 Chaperone: Potential Substrates and Adaptors. J Proteome Res. 2019 Jun 7;18(6):2585-2600. doi: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.9b00112. Epub 2019 May 22.
- Jui‐Yun RL, Friso G, Kim J, van Wijk KJ. (2018) Consequences of the loss of catalytic triads in chloroplast CLPPR protease core complexes in vivo. Plant Direct. 2018, Volume2, Issue10.
- Bhuiyan, N. H., Friso, G., Rowland, E., Majsec, K., & van Wijk, K. (2016). The Plastoglobule-Localized Metallopeptidase PGM48 Is a Positive Regulator of Senescence in Arabidopsis thaliana. The Plant Cell. 28:3020-3037.
- Lohscheider, J. N., Friso, G., & van Wijk, K. (2016). Phosphorylation of plastoglobular proteins in Arabidopsis thaliana. JXB: Journal of Experimental Botany. 67:3975-3984.
- Bhuiyan, N. H., Friso, G., Poliakov , A., Ponnala , L., & van Wijk, K. (2015). MET1 Is a Thylakoid-Associated TPR Protein Involved in Photosystem II Supercomplex Formation and Repair in Arabidopsis. The Plant Cell.
- Friso, G., & van Wijk, K. (2015). Posttranslational Protein Modifications in Plant Metabolism. Plant Physiology.
- , J., & Friso, G. (2015). Structures, Functions, and Interactions of ClpT1 and ClpT2 in the Clp Protease System of Arabidopsis Chloroplasts. The Plant Cell.
- van Wijk, K., Friso, G., Walther , D., & Schulze, W. X. (2014). Meta-Analysis of Arabidopsis thaliana Phospho-Proteomics Data Reveals Compartmentalization of Phosphorylation Motifs. The Plant Cell. 26:2367Ð2389.
- Friso, G., Majeran, W., Huang, M., Sun, Q., & van Wijk, K. (2010). Reconstruction of metabolic pathways, protein expression and homeostasis machineries across maize bundle sheath and mesophyll chloroplasts; large scale quantitative proteomics using the first maize genome assembly. Plant Physiology. 152:1219-1250.
- Kroeger, T. S., Watkins, K. P., Friso, G., van Wijk, K., & Barkan, A. (2009). A plant-specific RNA binding domain revealed through analysis of chloroplast group II intron splicing. PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 106:4537-42.
- Sun, Q., Zybailov, B., Majeran, W., Friso, G., Olinares, P. B., & van Wijk, K. (2009). PPDB, the Plant Proteomics Database at Cornell. Nucleic Acids Research. 37:D969-74.
- Zybailov, B., Friso, G., Kim, J., Rudella, A., Ramirez-RodriguezqV,, Asakura, Y., Sun, Q., & van Wijk, K. (2009). Large scale comparative proteomics of a chloroplast Clp protease mutant reveals folding stress, altered protein homeostasis and feedback regulation of metabolism. MCP: Molecular & Cellular Proteomics. 8:1789-1810.
Presentations and Activities
- A high resolution structural and proteomic atlas of the developing rice leaf. 60th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics . May 2012. ASMS. Vancouver, Canada.
Courses Taught
PLBIO 3100: Medicinal Botany and Drug Disc
My goal as a teacher is to inspire my students in the learning process, and engage them in the process of discovery, facilitate mastery of plant biology, help them integrate concepts of biochemistry, pharmacology, physiology, ethnobotany, indigenous knowledge and bioprospecting. I also aim to transmit my enthusiasm as a researcher and a teacher influencing my students to commit to my course and interest them in the field of medicinal plants and drug discovery. I am deeply interested to convey a knowledge and awareness of different cultural practices, values, and beliefs, and help my students gain an understanding of their own cultural perspective.
I teach two courses on medicinal plants, which I developed in 2016, prerequisite for the Plant and Human Health concentration of the Plant Science major. Medical Ethnobotany (3 credits course, 2000 level) exposes students to the relationship between plants and native people in various parts of the world, their effect on human health and their mechanism of action in the human bodies. I also teach Medicinal Botany and Drug Discovery (2 credits, 3000 level).
Plants have been used for the maintenance of health and source of medicinal agents for thousands of years and a remarkable number of modern drugs have been isolated or derived from plants. In this course, we explore the mechanisms of action, the effects, efficacy and potency of isolated bio-active compounds found in injurious, hallucinogenic and medicinal plants as source of medicines, sold by pharmaceutical companies. During the course of the semester we introduce 12 case studies from 12 different plant species. Furthermore, the course cover the distribution of plant secondary metabolites, the use of techniques in the isolation and structure elucidation of natural products, their pharmacokinetic properties and the steps involved in drug production and approval.
Contact Information
1008 Bradfield Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
gf32 [at] cornell.edu
More information