Plant, agro-food and veterinary biotechnology has expanded widely in the past decade. Scientific interest and research in these areas focus primarily on developing technologies and methodologies for practical applications, with a specific view to improve biotechnologies in the production and quality of food of animal or vegetable origin for human consumption, the control and eradication of plant and animal parasites, the improved breeding of food-producing and companion animal species, and the development of improved plant species.
To do this, plants, animals and microorganisms are dissected using modern research tools in genomics and proteomics as well as those from classical genetics and physiology. Several techniques have been granted national and international patents.
As these projects go forward, further patent applications are envisaged for:
- new technologies of artificial insemination in horses, cattle, pigs and dogs
- new methodologies to render pharmaceuticals and chemicals (proteins, drugs, insecticides, vaccines) amenable to controlled release
- new approaches to the production of dairy products with enhanced tolerability
- safety and wholesomeness of feed and food
- control of wine quality
- effects of flavonoids on human health
- key enzymes in ammonia assimilation in bacteria and plants
- somaclonal variation in transgenic stone fruit trees
- new methodologies for studying the expression of heterologous genes in plants
The exploration of plant, animal and food matrices to discover novel microorganisms with potential applications in plant, agro-food and veterinary biotechnology is another research field with a well-established molecular microbial ecology platform.