Project partner #12

NAME OF THE ORGANIZATION: CNR-ISPA,  National Research Council – Institute of Science of Food Production

MAIN CONTACT FOR GoJELLY: Antonella Leone, antonella.leone@ispa.cnr.it

ADDRESS: CNR-ISPA, ECOTEKNE,  Via Prov.le Lecce-Monteroni – 73100 – Lecce, Italy

WEBSITE and other links: http://www.ispacnr.it/en/;  http://www.ispacnr.it/en/590-2/

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE ORGANIZATION
National Research Council (CNR) founded in 1923, is the largest and oldest Italian public research body, supervised by the Ministry of Education Universities and Research, performing multidisciplinary activities in their 7 Departments and about 100 Institutes. Among them, CNR-ISPA with its 5 territorial units and about 150 researchers/technicians, is internationally recognized in the fields of research, innovation and technology transfer to national and international SME and Large Enterprises. CNR-ISPA mission is focused on improvement of food quality and safety, through multidisciplinary and innovative approaches, by using biotechnologies and innovative technologies, advanced diagnostic and sustainable production systems. Focus topics are probiotics, functional foods and novel foods.

COMPETENCES AND INVOLVEMENT in GoJelly
CNR-ISPA is involved in developing human food products from jellyfish biomasses, according with the European laws on novel foods, considering ecological, safety, nutrition, legal, economic, social and public acceptance issues. This will be done throught:

  • Development and validation at lab scale new handling and processing methodologies able to preserve the jellyfish features useful for food uses, avoiding endogenous (toxins, microbial pathogens, heavy metals) or processing-related risks, or decline in product quality.
  • Development and validation of the jellyfish processing methodologies at pilot scale in collaboration with the food company Sanpietro
  • Get insight in the nutraceutical value of jellyfish or jellyfish derived compounds, to validate it as human health promoting food

Team members

Antonella Leone, PhD, cellular biologist
http://www.cnr.it/peoplepublic/peoplepublic/index/schedaeng/u/antonella.leone

My research is focused on studing biological activity of natural products derived from plant and animal kingdom, with particular reference of marine invertebrate. The study of nutraceutical value of natural compounds and the knowledge of underling action mechanisms, by using human cell cultures, are pivotal of my experimental activity. I collaborate also to communicate and disseminate research findings among more ample communities.

Antonia Gallo, molecular biologist
https://www.cnr.it/en/people/antonia.gallo

My research interests and activities over recent years have mainly centered around molecular microbiology and biotecnology in the field of quality and safety of food products; analysis of microbial diversity; molecular studies on the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites and on the regulatory mechanisms for their production.

Gianluca Bleve, PhD, biotechnologist
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2303-9365

My scientific activities are mainly focused on developing biotechnological solutions to improve the processes and the quality, safety and nutritional characteristics of food products and derived by-products; development of new diagnostics for gluten detection in foods for celiac diet; the use of microbial expression system for production, purification and characterization of heterologous protein of industrial interest.