The Molecular Nutrition and Food Microbiology group (CREA-AN) offers its expertise in the following research areas:
-Food fermentations
-Targeted metabolomics to detect the presence of bioactive molecules in foods
-Intestinal in vitro models to evaluate bio-accessibility and bioavailability, absorption and potential toxicity of nutrients, xenobiotics and food matrices
– Nutritional interventions in animal models or in humans to evaluate i) bioavailability of bioactive molecules (by targeted metabolomics); ii) metabolic and immunological response and molecular biomarkers of health (by transcriptomics, metabolomics, flow cytometry, biochemistry, molecular biology); iii) gut microbiota composition (by metagenomics)
The Food Microbiology and Dairy Technology teams (CREA-ZA) offers its expertise in the following research areas:
– Study on the microbiological quality and safety of fermented food products, including bacterial spoilage, pathogens, detection and characterization of dairy bacteriophages;
– Development and/or validation of new or modified dairy-based products/processes at a pilot level
in vitro models, bioactive molecules, nutritional intervention, fermented foods, microbiological safety and quality, pilot scale
Specific equipment and facilities of CREA-AN:
qRT-PCR apparatus, Flow cytometer, LC-MS-MS, DGGE, Confocal microscope, BL3-level tissue culture facility, Certified animal housing facility.
Facilities of CREA-ZA:
experimental dairy farm, which holds a heritage of dairy cows;
pilot dairy plant, with the necessary skills and equipment to carry out cheesemaking and ripening, the heat treatment of milk and the standardization of its composition;
microbiological and molecular biology laboratories equipped for the analysis and characterization of fermented food products.
