Massimo Turina is currently a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection – CNR, Research Unit in Brescia, Italy, within the Department of Molecular and Translational Medicine at Brescia University. He obtained his graduate degrees in Agricultural Sciences and a PhD from the University of Bologna, Faculty of Agriculture. He served as a postdoctoral research associate at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX, and at UC Davis, USA. He spent three years on sabbatical in the Department of Plant Pathology at UC Davis, collaborating with Dr. Neal Van Alfen and Dr. Bryce Falk. His research focuses on the identification and molecular characterization of plant viruses, with particular emphasis on horticultural crops such as tomatoes, peppers, and cucurbits. He has studied various aspects of plant-virus interactions across different experimental systems and has recently expanded his interests to include fungal and insect viruses as well as viroid-like elements in fungi.