From ornamental value to bioactivity: comparative phytochemistry and antioxidant activity of Lavandula species and cultivars.

Dr Brunetti is a senior researcher in plant physiology at the Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection (IPSP) of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) in Sesto Fiorentino (Florence, Italy).
After a master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology at the University of Florence, she began working as an analytical chemist in a pharmaceutical company. After a few years, she decided to pursue a second bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florence.

Fascinated by botany, she was then offered the opportunity to work on a PhD project on the role of secondary metabolites in plant responses to drought.
During her doctoral studies, she mastered new skills, particularly ecophysiological measures such as photosynthesis, chlorophyll fluorescence, and plant water relations, and then applied her chemical background to investigate plant biochemistry.

Because of this background, Dr Brunetti has always looked at plants from different perspectives, from the molecules inside their tissues to their phenotype, enjoying both measuring plant traits in the woodland and analyzing polyphenols using chromatographic techniques. Her research activity remains guided by the curiosity of investigating plant-environment interactions at multiple scales.
Current research interests are mainly directed towards the study the causes of tree dieback in natural forests and plant metabolomics.
She is also coordinating a European Project, LIFE RECLOAK, focused on holm oak dieback, and is continuing the study of secondary metabolites in Mediterranean plants, aimed at valorizing neglected plants as biofactories.