The University of Bologna (UNIBO), Italy

 

Faculty of Agriculture, Dept. of Agroenvironmental Sciences and Technologies

Nine centuries of history, nine centuries of unbroken tradition, contributing first to European and then global culture, make Bologna University unique and enhance its stature as an outstanding seat of learning and research in a wide range of disciplines.

The progress of scientific research has always been the product of joint efforts by scientists from all over the world: it is in this context that lectureships have been opened to non-Italians (there are currently about thirty at our university), that our institution has entered into numerous exchange agreements with other universities and that it takes full advantage of the European Union mobility schemes.

The School of Agriculture was established in Bologna in 1930 and in 1935 it became the Faculty of Agriculture. The various Faculty of Agriculture courses provide a sound technical and scientific grounding for general and specialized training in plant and animal production, food technology and crop biotechnology.

Each course addresses aspects of a constantly evolving living world and also environmental issues, always placing human beings and their needs and well-being above everything else.

The School has established these scientific areas Departments:

Agroenvironmental Sciences and Technologies

Agricultural Economics and Engineering

Food Sciences and Technologies

Arboriculture, Viticulture, Forestry and Landscape

Protection and Improvement of Agricultural Food Production

 

Responsible for WP13 and RTD leader on Application and Control. The group will contribute to the study of probiotics and prebiotics, with the intent of founding new application approach. All the acquired knowledge will be verified in vivo to test the efficience against new emerging pathogens.

 

Key persons for PathogenCombat

Prof. Bruno Biavati (Leader of RTD IV and Leader of WP13) is a full professor at the Agricultural Faculty of the University of Bologna, is a microbiologist with extensive (30 years) experience studying the genus Bifidobacterium, the Methanoarchea, the microbial ecology of the intestinal tract in humans and farm animals as well as intestinal probiotics. The experience in those fields has been headed by working at V.P.I., USA (14 months) at "National Institute for Dairy Research, UK (8 weeks) and at D.S.M. Germany (2 weeks). He is co-chairman of the "Subcommittee on Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus and related organism", member of the "Subcommittee on Taxonomy of Methanogenic Bacteria" of the "International Committee on Systematic Bacteriology". He has published more than 80 relevant scientific papers. He wrote the chapter "The genus Bifidobacterium" in the second edition of "The Prokaryotes" and the chapter "The family Bifidobacteriaceae" in the electronic version of "The Prokaryotes" (2001), President of Italian Society of Agricultural, Food, Environmental Microbiology, he belongs to the following professional bodies :"American Society for Microbiology", "Society for Microbial Ecology and Disease", "The New York Academy of Science", "Società Italiana di Microbiologia" e "Società Italiana di Microbiologia Generale e Biotecnologie Microbiche".

 

 

 

Senior Scientist, Doctor Diana Di Gioia (involved in WP13) is a microbial taxonomist. Her areas of scientific expertice are microbial ecology, physiology and methods in microbiology.

 

Junior Scientists, Dr. Francesca Gaggìa, Dr. Loredana Baffoni, Dr. Cecilia Santini (involved in WP 10 and WP13).