Research interests include nutrigenomics, metagenomics, animal welfare, and animal microbiotics. Teleost fish are the most frequently used animal models, but there are also other “small farmed animals”. The goal of scientific research is to ascertain the effects on an animal’s nutritional health and physiological performance of substituting alternative, more sustainable sources of proteins and lipids for marine-derived ones that are obtained naturally or through biotechnological processes. In order to achieve this, research are currently being conducted that involve the use of substitutes such proteins from plants, proteins from insects raised under a system of circular economies, proteins and lipids generated in bioreactors using industrial waste substrates, or proteins from autolyzed yeast (single cell proteins). The most commercially valuable fish species intended for human consumption are examined for protein metabolism, growth performance, and immunological response using physiological and molecular platforms. In order to achieve, within a biotechnological framework, a tuning through the diet of the gut microbiota itself, aimed at increasing performance and improving the health of the animals, the effects of raw material substitutions in the diet are therefore investigated at the level of the intestinal microbiome, through the use of techniques, such as High Throughput Sequencing of 16S rRNA.

This Research Unit’s particular areas of specialization include:

• Biology of aquaculture
• Technologies and husbandry in mariculture and inland water aquaculture
• Aquaculture and environment
• Molecular biology applied to aquaculture
• Fish nutrition
• Fish welfare
• Fish and water microbiota
• Micro- and nanoplastics

For the rearing of freshwater and marine species, facilities include a water recirculation system (RAS).

RAS, which consists of tanks of various shapes (circular and rectangular) and sizes (600–2,500 liters), has a total useable volume of 25 cubic meters. The quality of the water is regularly monitored using an online Rilheva surveillance system. With diverse fish species, including European seabass, gilthead seabream, and European perch, RAS has been employed in different feeding studies. The Research Unit also has access to a conventional freshwater flow through system used in our region for rainbow trout.

The laboratory has the necessary equipment for DNA and RNA extraction, gel electrophoresis, western-blot, PCR, quantitative real-time PCR, Digital Droplet PCR, UV-fluorescence-ECL imaging system, light and fluorescence microscopes, ELISA reader, cell culture facility, metabolic chambers, two -80°C freezing units, and standard equipment for liquid handling and solutions preparation. The Unit has also access to a facility equipped with Illumina High-Seq 2500 device for metagenomics studies.

Contacts and collaborations are active with commercial mariculture farms as well as inland freshwater water fish farms, including hatcheries, where undergraduated and PhD students may conduct research for their thesis.