MIT postdoc Giorgio Rizzo harnesses plant chemistry to design sustainable fertilizers that could reshape modern farming.
MIT postdoc Giorgio Rizzo harnesses plant chemistry to design sustainable fertilizers that could reshape modern farming.
Born in Palermo, Sicily, Giorgio Rizzo spent his childhood curious about the natural world. “I have always been fascinated by nature and how plants and animals can adapt and survive in extreme environments,” he says. “Their highly tuned biochemistry, and their incredible ability to create ones of the most complex and beautiful structures in chemistry that we still can’t even achieve in our laboratories.”
As an undergraduate student, he watched as a researcher mounted a towering chromatography column layered with colorful plant chemicals in a laboratory. When the researcher switched on a UV light, the colors turned into fluorescent shades of blue, green, red and pink. “I realized in that exact moment that I wanted to be the same person, separating new unknown compounds from a rare plant with potential pharmaceutical properties,” he recalls.
Read More: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Image: In the Marelli Lab at MIT, Giorgio Rizzo develops sustainable seed coatings using natural materials to boost plant resilience and reduce the environmental impact of traditional fertilizers. (Credits:Photo: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering)
