Animal science

Research activities carried out in this Division can be summarised as follows:

  • Reproductive biotechnologies for improving fertility, animal breeding and preventing breeds extinction;
  • Identification of innate immunity genes in human, bovine and other species, conferring resistance/susceptibility to pathogens;
  • Alternative therapies (antimicrobial peptides and bacteriophage therapy) to conventional antibiotic treatment;
  • Vaccines production;
  • Biosensors as a tool for diagnosis of food contamination;
  • MicroRNA as a biomarker for the diagnosis of infectious diseases in cattle;
  • Comparative proteomics to detect changes associated to structural and ultrastructural muscle variations;
  • Assessment of animal welfare at farm level;
  • Effect of nutrition on: organoleptic, nutritional and security characteristics of livestock product; environment; livestock-farm efficiency;
  • Effect of genetic and environmental factors on meat organoleptic qualities;
  • Nutritional and organoleptic attributes in food products from local breeds;
  • Re-use of nutrients from treated waste water to grow microalgae for biomass production;
  • Diversification of farmed fish species in water recycling systems;
  • Molecular genetics for the quali-quantitative improvement of the animal products.

Partecipants: