01.11.22
The winners of the second Call of the PASIFIC Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme have been selected: 15 laureates from 9 countries will be granted financing for their scientific projects. PASIFIC Fellows are going to conduct their research in 9 Institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Successful projects belong to the following Panels: Physical Sciences and Engineering (6 Fellowships), Life Sciences (4) and Social Sciences and Humanities (5).The PASIFIC Call 2 ranking and reserve lists are available below.
https://pasific.pan.pl/call-2/
One of the winners of the competition is Monika Hejna PhD, who will implement the project entitled "Algal-based alternatives: their ability to perform of anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities in swine farming system" at the Institute of Genetics and Animal Biotechnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences under the supervision of Artur Jóźwik PhD, DSc.
Research question (problem) of the project in PASIFIC:
Do the algae-based extracts have molecules to perform anti-inflammatory activity able to ameliorate inflammatory response, antioxidant activity to reduce oxidative stress and antimicrobial activity to reduce infection?
Approach to solve the research question:
ADVISE is a multidisciplinary project which combines the veterinary, animal sciences, immunology and immunotherapy disciplines. In this project, several in vitro models will be adopted to thoroughly evaluate the biological activities of algal-based extracts and their synergistic and complementary effects for further combinatory therapy against animals infections.
One of the models will use porcine alveolar macrophages (PAMs) with lipopolysaccharide challenge and algal compounds to test for their anti-inflammatory effects in vitro. Moreover, PAMs scavenge superoxide radicals efficiently thus, levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) will be also determined in PAMs in order to indicate whether the algal extracts are able to counteract the oxidation process and further improve the meat quality. Furthermore, several chemical-based assays, including the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging and reducing power assays will be used to test antioxidant activity of algal extracts. Besides, algal-based compounds will be tested for their inhibitory activity against major pathogenic strains of Escherichia coli (VTEC/ETEC) causing post-weaning diarrhea.
This project will thus bring a wide range of expertise in innovative nutrition, animal physiology, immunology and future guidelines for the improvement of agroeconomy.
The total value of funds received for the implementation of the project is: 189 942,00 €
