Nature’s Toolkit for Agriculture: Lunch and Lessons from 2026 AGRO Awardees

UPCOMING Webinar

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When: 12 PM EST USA, 23 September, 2026

Presenters:

• Giorgio Rizzo, Postdoctoral Associate, Postdoctoral Associate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — AGRO International Award Winner for Research in Agrochemicals
• Taicia Pacheco Fill, Associate Professor, University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Institute of Chemistry — Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry Research Article of the Year

Moderator: Dena Barrett, Program Chair, ACS Division of Agrochemicals

Description:

This is the second installment of our mini-series spotlighting 2026 AGRO Division award winners, pairing two researchers working at opposite ends of the same supply chain problem: postharvest disease and soil degradation. Penicillium italicum, the fungus behind citrus blue mold, causes major economic losses during cold storage, yet the molecular basis of its virulence has remained largely unexplored. Dr. Fill — recognized with the 2026 JAFC Research Article of the Year for this work — will present findings linking a nonribosomal peptide synthetase gene, hcpA, to the production of cyclic peptide virulence factors, and what happens to the pathogen’s ability to infect fruit when that gene is deleted. Dr. Rizzo, the 2026 AGRO International Award winner for Research in Agrochemicals, will then shift the lens to the field, discussing how chitosan-based biomaterials are being processed into a new generation of agricultural inputs, including rhizobacteria-delivery technologies tested in real field trials under climate stress conditions like desertification and high soil salinity.

What you will learn:

Together, these talks connect molecular plant pathology to applied agricultural materials science:

• The role of cyclic peptides and the NRPS enzyme HcpA in P. italicum virulence and postharvest citrus disease
• Why the ΔhcpA mutant grows normally but causes significantly smaller lesions — and what that reveals about time-regulated virulence
• How chitosan is processed into biopolymer-based fertilizers and rhizobacteria delivery systems
• How these biomaterials perform against classical agricultural inputs in real field experiments, including crop yield outcomes

Presenter Bios:

• Giorgio Rizzo, is the 2026 AGRO International Award Winner for Research in Agrochemicals. He received his doctorate in Chemistry from the University of Bari, focused on the chemical-physical modification of biopolymers for high-tech applications. He is currently a postdoctoral associate at MIT in the group of Prof. Benedetto Marelli, where his work centers on agrotechnical solutions for plantations facing climate change, desertification, and high soil salinity — using new-generation fertilizers and technologies built on natural biomaterials.
• Taicia Pacheco Fill is the winner of the 2026 Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry Research Article of the Year award. She is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Chemistry of the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), where she leads the Microbial Chemical Biology Laboratory (LaBioQuiMi). She earned her B.Sc. in Chemistry in 2006 and her M.Sc. (2009) and Ph.D. (2014) in Organic Chemistry from the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), including a doctoral research internship at the University of Cambridge under Prof. Peter Leadlay. She later conducted postdoctoral research (2016–2017) and served as a Visiting Professor (2020) at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology under Prof. Christian Hertweck. In 2019, she received the For Women in Science Award in the Chemical Sciences category from L’Oréal–UNESCO–Brazilian Academy of Sciences, and in 2022 she was elected an Affiliated Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. She served as Secretary of the Brazilian Chapter of ACS from 2019–2021 and is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Her research focuses on natural products chemistry, chemical ecology, pathogen–host interactions, and the biosynthesis of fungal secondary metabolites.

This webinar series is part of the AGRO Division’s ongoing commitment to providing technical excellence and regulatory insight to the agrochemical community. For past webinar recordings, please visit the Lunch and Learn Webinar Archive.  The AGRO Division Lunch and Learn webinar series is graciously sponsored by JRF Global.