Dr. Luis Vaschetto

During his Ph.D., Luis explored how the last glaciations might have affected the population genetic structure of Geraecormobious Sylvarum (Opiliones-Arachnida), a subtropical harvestman inhabiting the Parana Forest and the Yungas Forest, two completely disjunct areas in northern Argentina.

After his Ph.D, Luis was a Research Associate of the South Dakota State University (USA), where he investigated epigenetic mechanisms involved in seed dormancy of weedy rice.

Luis is an autodidact who is always willing to learn more about epigenetic pathways that challenge Mendel's laws of inheritance. He exploited this by analyzing fascinating biological phenomena such as transposon silencing, genomic imprinting, paramutation and transgenerational inheritance. Over the last years he has investigated how different epigenetic mechanisms could act to shape the development of crop plants and animals, as well as their roles in human health and disease states.

Luis has also explored how evolutionarily conserved RNA activation (RNAa) mechanisms, which show interesting parallelisms with the RNA interference (RNAi) pathway, can be used in molecular biology labs to activate the expression of endogenous genes.

Some of Luis’s research works that have been published in scientific journals include:

1. Vaschetto LM (2015) Exploring an emerging issue: Crop epigenetics. Plant Molecular Biology Reporter. DOI: 10.1007/s11105-014-0796-z. Springer New York Publishing Company.
2. Vaschetto LM, González-Ittig R, Vergara J; Acosta LE (2015) High genetic diversity in the harvestman Geraeocormobius sylvarum (Arachnida, Opiliones, Gonyleptidae) from subtropical forests in north-eastern Argentina revealed by mitochondrial DNA sequences. Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research. DOI: 10.1111/jzs.12093. Blackwell Publishing Inc.
3. Vaschetto LM (2016) Miniature Inverted-repeat Transposable Elements (MITEs) and their effects on the regulation of major genes in cereal grass genomes. Molecular Breeding. 36:30. DOI 10.1007/s11032-016-0440-8. Springer Netherlands.
4. Vaschetto LM (2016) Understanding the role of protein interaction motifs in transcriptional regulators: implications for crop improvement. Briefing in Functional Genomics. DOI: 10.1093/bfgp/elw022. Oxford University Press.
5. Vaschetto LM (2017) RNA activation: A diamond in the rough for genome engineers. Journal of Cellular Biochemistry. DOI: 10.1002/jcb.26228. John Wiley & Sons Inc.
6. Vaschetto LM (2017) Modulating signaling networks by CRISPR/Cas9-mediated transposable element insertion. Current Genetics. DOI: 10.1007/s00294-017-0765-9. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
7. Vaschetto LM (2018) miRNA activation is an endogenous gene expression pathway. RNA Biology. DOI: 10.1080/15476286.2018.1451722. Taylor & Francis Group.
8. Vaschetto LM, Beccacece HM (2019) The emerging importance of non-coding RNAs in the insecticide tolerance, with special emphasis on Plutella xylostella (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae). Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: RNA (JCR IF: 9.957). DOI: 10.1002/wrna.1539. John Wiley & Sons Inc.
9. Vaschetto LM (2019) The Emergence of Non-coding RNAs as Versatile and Efficient Therapeutic Tools. Current Gene Therapy. DOI: 10.2174/156652321905191122154955. Bentham Science.
10. Vaschetto LM. CRISPR/Cas and Gene Therapy: An Overview (2022). In CRISPR-/Cas9 Based Genome Editing for Treating Genetic Disorders and Diseases. DOI: 10.1201/9781003088516-5. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group.

Luis is also an enthusiast to generate new content at the frontier of knowledge, which already led him to edit several books:

• Cereal Genomics (2020). Methods in Molecular Biology Book Series. Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4939-9864-7. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4939-9865-4. Publisher: Springer Nature Group, New York.
• Plant Circular RNAs (2021). Methods in Molecular Biology Book Series. Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-0716-1644-4. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1645-1. Publisher: Springer Nature Group, New York.
• RNAi Strategies for Pest Management (2022). Methods in Molecular Biology Book Series. Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-0716-1632-1. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1633-8. Publisher: Springer Nature Group, New York.
• CRISPR-/Cas9 Based Genome Editing for Treating Genetic Disorders and Diseases (2022). DOI: 10.1201/9781003088516. Publisher: CRC Press (Taylor & Francis Group), Boca Raton, Florida.