IN-FACT One Health Basic and Translational Actions Addressing Unmet Needs on Emerging Infectious Diseases

The INF-ACT research program addresses pressing unmet needs of human emerging infectious diseases in both fundamental as well as in translational aspects, taking into consideration human health in a wider context including domestic and wild animals as potential disease reservoirs and environmental factors enhancing the possibility for spillover (One Health approach).

The project is focused on three “vertical” research nodes

• Emerging and re-emerging viral diseases (respiratory viruses and zoonotic viruses);
• Arthropod vectors and vector-borne pathogens (with a focus on VBDs most at risk of expand or emerge in Italy, such as arboviruses);
• Diseases sustained by bacteria and fungi resistant to multiple antibiotics (AMR and molecular mechanisms of MDR).

and two “transversal” research nodes to interact with the basic and translational activities

• Integrated “One Health” epidemiology (man, animal and man-animal), monitoring and mathematical models;
• Development of new therapeutic treatment strategies (identification of molecular targets, generation of small molecule libraries for drug discovery, testing of lead compounds and their optimization).

The INF-ACT consortium is composed of 25 research Institutions from the public and the private sector from all over Italy; the CNR is involved in Node 1, 3, 4 and 5.

AGRITECH SPOKE 1 Plant, animal and microbial genetic resources and adaptation to climatic changes

Resilience of agricultural and forest ecosystems under stressful conditions generated by climate change (CC) requires valorization and exploitation of genetic resources through cutting-edge conservation strategies, combined with deep characterization of genomes and high-throughput phenotyping.

Activities will include massive sequencing of accession/breeds/strains, extensive marker-based description of genomes, (pan)genome elucidation, deep phenotyping and multi-omics characterization.

Resulting information, processed through advanced methods for complex data analysis/interpretation/storage/management, will highlight superior alleles/haplotypes, identify beneficial interactions under a variety of conditions, and define conservation units.

FilAgro – Innovative and sustainable strategies for the agri-food chain

The FILAGRO project aims to provide solutions to several issues that are emerging in the field of modern agriculture. They concern: production sustainability, biodiversity and environment preservation; improvement in food quality, safety and healthy and nutritional aspects; technology development in favor of industry; new knowledge dissemination. These issues are highlighted as of high importance in the EXPO 2015 and Horizon 2020 programs as well as in the 2013-2015 plan of the Agriculture Directorate of the Lombardy Region.

sPATIALS3 - Improvement of agrifood productions and innovative technologies for a safer and more secure and sustainable nutrition

sPATIALS3 is a technological and research hub involving 12 CNR Institutes belonging to 4 different Departments and 4 companies. Main objectives will be: obtainment of innovative food products improved for their nutritional and functional properties; provision and implementation of precision technologies to guarantee products quality, safety and traceability; development of innovative and eco-sustainable smart– and active-packaging to minimize and reuse wastes, where possible, and to increase food preservability; provision to consumers and producers of tools for results exploitation.