
Elisa Baldrighi
Research Fellow
Ancona
Over the past decade, the aquaculture industry has grown significantly, becoming a major source of fish for human consumption. However, this growth has raised issues regarding public health and the marine environment and, in particular, regarding contamination of the aquaculture production environment as well as the final food product with antibiotics and other emerging pollutants, such as antibiotic-resistant and other pathogenic bacteria.
The goal of the ARENA project, coordinated by CNR IRBIM in collaboration with the CNR IRSA of Rome and Verbania, is to understand the transmission pathways and fate of antibiotic residues, antibiotic resistance genes, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and other pathogenic bacteria in aquaculture, including possible contamination from the environment (e.g, in open systems such as mariculture: freshwater discharges in the vicinity of aquaculture cages, seawater, sediment , benthic organisms residing in the vicinity of growth cages, feed; in RAS systems: water inputs, water inside cages, water before and after filtration processes, feed). Finally, the accumulation of the contamination in the final food product (fish fillet) will be evaluated. To achieve this goal, the ARENA project will use several innovative approaches, including metagenomic molecular methods, or methods based on quantitative PCR and the newer digital droplet PCR (ddPCR), and early-warning tools will be developed (including a flow cytometry-based assay, a system based on the use of the Nanopore DNA sequencing portable sequencing platform, and biosensors).
Project partners:
Referent:
Programme: JPI AMR - Aquatic Pollutants
Web Site: https://www.jpi-arena.eu/en/
Duration: November 17, 2021 - November 16, 2024
Budget: 1.101.910,00 €
Budget IRBIM: 150.000,00 €
Areas of Research: