Projects

The Unit MaRe leads various Research and Development projects aimed at devising innovative culture systems, to guarantee on one side the quality of organisms designed to the scientific research, on the other side the reduction of breeding and management costs, by using an intense automation and reduction of the necessity of human intervention. To this end, the coordinator of the Unit submitted various projects in the last years and some of them are now starting, being funded, also thanks to the cooperation of industrial partners. Among them a strategic importance characterizes the project ModRes (FLAGSHIP RESEARCH PROGRAM. New model organisms for the scientific research: culture, ecology, physiology and genomic characterization. January 2018-December 2018. Euro 33.000). Experimentation has already started in the frame of this project, to reach the completion of the productive cycle of the two classic model species used for research purposes at SZN, Paracentrotus lividus and Ciona intestinalis. Ideal breeding procedure have been set and settlement cues have been devised; we are now in a phase of transfer of the knowledge to industrial productive processes. In parallel, the project INTENSE (MISE. INtegrated operating devices for inTElligent eNvironmental Services. To be started in 2018, duration 36 months. Euro 1.036.000) is aimed at the definition of revolutionary intelligent systems based on Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. The IoTes to be realized in cooperation with private industrial partners and engineering competences will allow the ideation of intelligent cages to breed P. lividus in the field, intelligent panels to be deployed to host C. intestinalis in coastal areas of the Bay of Naples, as well as intelligent photobioreactors to produce microalgae. Preliminary results are forecasted by the end of this year, when we also estimate to complete the restructuration of new culture facilities at the SZN.