Bio

Dr. Massimo Iorizzo is a Professor at NCSU with over 16 years of experience in plant breeding, genetics and genomics. Iorizzo’s research aims to establish genetic and genomic resources to elucidate the genes involved in quality and nutritional characteristics of plants, including the accumulation of health promoting compounds (e.g. anthocyanin, carotenoids, flavanols) in fruits and vegetables, in addition to other economically important plant characteristics, such as disease resistance. Target crops in Iorizzo’s research program include banana, blueberry, carrot, cranberry, pineapple, potato, spinach and sweetpotato.

In 2024, Iorizzo was appointed associate director of Plants for Human Health Institute.

Publications

• Advancing Genetic and Genomic Resources for Carrot Improvement , XXXIII Plant & Animal Genome (2026)
• Advancing genomics for carrot anthocyanins, phenolics and antioxidant capacity , XXXIII Plant & Animal Genome (2026)
• Current Progress on Existing Genotyping Platforms in Blueberry and Their Applications , XXXIII Plant & Animal Genome (2026)
• Current Progress on Existing Genotyping Platforms in Blueberry and Their Applications , XXXIII Plant & Animal Genome (2026)
• DNA Traces on the Shroud of Turin: Metagenomics of the 1978 Official Sample Collection , bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (2026)
• Distinct metabolic signatures of ploidy and cold storage in blueberry fruit revealed by integrative metabolomics and machine learning , Food Chemistry X (2026)
• Fruit Composition Diversity among the North Carolina Strawberry Core Germplasm Collection , HortScience (2026)
• Functional Characterization of a 481 bp Insertion in the DcMYB11 Promoter Regulating Anthocyanin Biosynthesis in Carrot , XXXIII Plant & Animal Genome (2026)
• Genome Database for Vaccinium: a knowledgebase for genetics, genomics, and breeding research , Genetics (2026)
• Genome-wide association analysis reveals key loci controlling anthocyanin and phenolic acid biosynthesis in purple carrot (Daucus carota L.) , XXXIII Plant & Animal Genome (2026)