Biotechnology of Algae

The biodiversity of algae is large and not completely explored, thus, while a few species are already exploited for the industrial production of useful metabolites, other possible uses must be yet discovered or applied; these organisms, in addition, bear the advantage of displaying growth patterns that can be standardized and even addressed towards the production of the molecules of interest or towards the optimization of environmental processes, such as wastewater or gas bioremediation, biofuel production, bioactive molecule production for medicine and nutraceuticals (carotenoids, omega-3 fatty acids, polysaccharides or proteins). The researches of the group in this subject are related to the study of the influence of culturing parameters (nutrient concentration, CO₂ insufflation, irradiance, temperature) on the optimization of microalgae growth and of molecules production. The species of interest are isolated from the environment and cultured and, in view of industrial application, cultures scale up in photobioreactors or pilot ponds is performed. These studies are part of the activities of the CIRI Energy and Environment belonging to the Technopole of Ravenna (Emilia-Romagna).

Relevant projects

• Researches on environmental themes were performed within Projects of Relevant National Interest (PRIN, MIUR) or European funded projects, as subcontractors or RU (BIOTOXmarine, Development of novel analytic tools for the detection of marine biotoxins; MEECE, Marine Ecosystem Evolution in a Changing Environment; BALMAS, Ballast water management system for Adriatic Sea protection; CASCADE, CoAStal and marine waters integrated monitoring systems for ecosystems protection AnD managemEnt).
• Researches on biotecnological themes were funded by companies (Tozzi TRE; Micoperi Blue Growth, Algae & Algae), Emilia-Romagna Region (CARETE, Carbon Reduction Technologies; AWARE, Algae for Wastewter treatment addressed to recovery; GOBIOM, Biomethan production chain optimization), MISE-CNR (Project “Efficient Bioenergy”, WP “Biomass and Biofuels from Algae”) or European (Interreg MED MISTRAL, Mediterranean Innovation STRAtegy for transnational activity of clusters and networks of the Blue Growth).