**About the Editors**

#### **Donatella Bianca Maria Ficco**

Donatella Bianca Maria Ficco, long-term researcher in the Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for Cereal and Industrial Crops of Foggia (Italy) since 2012. She has published 38 articles in scientific journals indexed with a relative quality index, in addition to 75 works accepted in different national and international congresses. All these works are framed within three research lines: (a) phenotyping of quality and nutraceutical characters and process operations for the development of functional foods, (b) development of genetic maps to study the genetic basis of agronomically important traits and (c) storage protein and celiac disease. She is co-inventor of the patent (PCT/IT2012/000287) on "Peptides having protective effect towards the inflammatory activity of peptide 31-43 of -gliadin in celiac disease". She is a member of the expert working group on 'Durum wheat genomics and breeding' within the Wheat Initiative.

#### **Grazia Maria Borrelli**

Grazia Maria Borrelli graduated in Biological Sciences at University of Pisa and obtained his PhD in Sustainable Agricultural Ecosystems from the University of Foggia. She is currently a researcher at Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for Cereal and Industrial Crops in Foggia.

Her research activity mainly concerns durum wheat and falls within three main topics: the study of lipoxygenase role in pasta color, cereal processing, pigmented wheats for functional foods; in vitro culture and genetic transformation, including transgenesis an New Breeding Technologies, for traits of agronomical interest; multiple plant responses to abiotic stresses.

She has contributed as author or co-author of 31 papers published in scientific indexed journals, 8 papers published in popular Journals, and 3 book chapters by international publishers, in addition to 34 proceedings accepted in different national and international congresses.
