Project financed in the framework of PON R&C 2007-2013 - PAC Enhancement of public research infrastructures

Coordinator Raffaella Casotti

The project concerns the enhancement of research infrastructures for marine environment located in the Convergence Regions Sicily, Campania and Puglia, where the sea is a primary opportunity of development. The project, called EMSO‐MedIT is the Italian contribution to the consolidation in the above mentioned regions of the European research infrastructure EMSO, which, within the context
of EMSO‐MedIT, is in synergy with the other ESFRI coordinated by Italy (KM3NeT and EMBRC) and the Italian initiative for marine research RITMARE.
 
The actions foreseen will be carried out according to the following objectives:

1) enhancement of marine infrastructures and of scientific and technological facilities to strengthenand expand the network for multidisciplinary monitoring of coastal, deep and the water column
marine environment;

2) networking of all existing and enhanced infrastructures for the transmission in real‐time/near‐realtimeintegrating the data from fixed and relocatable observing systems;

3) establishment of a mobile system of intervention to be used for monitoring campaigns at sites ofstrategic interest or in the case of environmental emergencies.

The network of monitoring infrastructures will be further enhanced through the creation of anexchange information system that will enable the sharing of the large amounts of data, providing access to a large community of Italian and foreign users.

Our role: We are partners of the project and in charge of the WP2 "Strengthening of Campania", together with INGV for the Gulf of Pozzuoli. The expansion includes the acquisition of different oceanographic instrumentation, including a WaveGlider, an ROV, and various sensors, but mainly two buoys type elastic beacon to locate in the Gulf of Naples and Gulf of Pozzuoli for the real-time monitoring and data transmission to the control center of physical and biological environmental data.
Partners: National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), Anton Dohrn Zoological Station (SZN), National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), the National Research Center (CNR), National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA)

Financed by the ENPI CBC Mediterranean Sea Basin 2007/2013 Program of the European Union
Scientific Responsible Raffaella Casotti

The project aims to provide the necessary technical and organizational support, especially to small and medium-sized enterprises (existing and potential) that operate in the food sector and in other traditional sectors of tourism, to promote coordinated actions aimed at increasing the share revenue from tourism which benefits the economies of the countries of the Mediterranean. The main result of the project is the creation of new business activities related to sustainable tourism in four coastal areas with significant natural and cultural resources and the strengthening of alliances with companies through the adoption of an approach to public / private management, quality standards and incentive systems that are coupled objectives of economic development with the protection and enhancement of natural / cultural heritage.

In addition, the project will create an international network of sustainable coastal tourism destinations in the Mediterranean Sea basin as a place for the development of common methodologies during project implementation and in the long run such as monitoring and promotional platform owned by local users, national and scientific and open to new subjects, that could spur further development of sustainable coastal tourism on the Mediterranean route.

We are partners in the project and our role is to create the environmental monitoring system of the three sites in order to a) provide real-time data on environmental conditions b) raise awareness among visitors to environmental issues, spreading the sceintific culture through actions such as "citizen science" c) train tourism operators so that they are aware of the environmental value of their sites and participate in their development and conservation

Partners: the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (coordinator), the Sinis Peninsula (Sardinia), the Zoological Station Anton Dohrm, the city of Mahdia (Tunisia) and the National Institute of Marine Sciences and Technology of Tunisia , the Al-Balqa Applied University and the Marine Protected Area of Aqaba (Jordan)

IRMA: Implementation and Remote Connection for Real Time Moniotoring of Marine Microorganisms

Funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Education (MIUR)
Scientific Coordinator Raffaella Casotti

This project proposes to use a prototype for the automatic, continuous staining of bacteria for the in situ high frequency monitoring (several times a day, up to every 30 min). This instrument will complement the tools already available to SZN for the monitoring of photosynthetic microorganisms, allowing the definition in close temporal and spatial scale of the microbial compartment. We will study the feasibility of use on sampling boats, even without any technical supervision and, in the long term, on buoys. The data produced will provide useful information on the microbial dynamics at very small time scale in several coastal sites. The final product will be a demonstrator of multiparameter monitoring station that transmits environmental data from different sources in real time, operated remotely, helping to build an early warning system for environmental risk

Our role in the project is to coordinate actions and to test, calibrate and validate the prototype

Partners: SZN, CytoBuoy bv (Holland, George Dubelaar), Eawag (Switzerland, Frederick Hammes), CNRS- MIO (France, Gérald Grégori, Melilotus Thyssen, Michel Denis), INGV (Italian, Giovanni Iannaccone, Sergio Guardato)

Summary

The DiaEdit project, Development of genetic tools for the establishment of routine genome editing in the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum, is part of the initiative “Increasing the Potential of Marine Microeukaryotes as Experimental Model Systems through the Development of Genetic Tools” promoted by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
The recent development of genetic tools for targeted genome editing of diatoms constitutes a great opportunity for the characterization of molecular processes in these ecologically important algae. Genome editing technologies in diatoms, however, are still in their infancy regarding their routine application. Targeted mutagenesis in diatoms is challenging because of their mostly diploid state and the current lack of efficient homologous recombination.
In this project we propose to enlarge knowledge and tools for genome editing in the molecular model species Phaeodactylum tricornutum, an essential requirement to transfer these technologies to other diatoms. We plan to develop and/or validate three different approaches for genome editing: a TALEN-based approach, the utilization of CRISPR/Cas9 and a viral integrase system.

What we do

SZN is involved in Task 4 "Control of nuclease expression", aimed at the improvement of the specificity of action and expression of the nuclease used to modify the genome. This will be done mainly by identifying promoters that can allow fine control of the nuclease expression. NGS (next generation sequencing) will be used to assess the level of specificity of the chosen system by re-sequencing engineered clones.

Partners

SZN; Universitè Pierre et Marie Curie Paris, France; University of Konstanz, Germany; Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway; Tel Aviv University, Israel; Biological Systems and Biochemical Engineering Laboratory INSA/CNRS, France.

Research Area

Functional Genomics, Marine Biotechnology

Project Lifetime

October 2015 - September 2017

SZN Role

Partner

SZN Principal Investigator

Mariella Ferrante

Project Leader

Angela Falciatore, UPMC

Funding Institution

The Marine Microbiology Initiative funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (USA).

Dedicated website

Under construction

Personnel involved

Mariella Ferrante, Principal investigator
Monia Russo, Senior Post-doc