The National Research Council (CNR) is the largest public research institution in Italy, the only one under the Research Ministry performing multidisciplinary activities. CNR is organized in seven multidisciplinary Departments dealing on biology, medicine, physics, mathematics, technology, chemistry, social sciences etc.
In particular the CNR Department of Bio and Agri-Food (DiSBA) with its activities focused on biology and biotechnology, food and sustainable agriculture and characterization and conservation of animal and plant genetic resource, joined the MIRRI-IT project with its main culture collections.
In fact, the CNR Institutes which refer to DiSBA hold important collections of biological material consisting of plants, animals and microorganisms. Totally there are more than 100,000 accessions recorded in the BioGenRes portal, an initiative of DiSBA aiming at the bioinformatics organization and networking of the DiSBA genetic resources. Respect to the microrganisms resources, two major collections of microrganisms at CNR are: ITEM and PLAVIT.
The ITEM Agro-Food Microbial Culture Collection of CNR-ISPA (Institute of Sciences and of Food Production) includes more than 13,000 strains belonging to various agro-food microorganisms (mainly fungi, yeast and bacteria) about 6,500 are available as public resources to the scientific community. ITEM has the ISO 9001- 2015 certification. It is member of the European Culture Collections’ Organisation (ECCO) and of the World Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC).
The PLAVIT (Plant Virus Italy) collection of CNR-IPSP (Institute of Sustainable Plant Protection) includes more than 1100 isolates of plant viruses belonging to 136 species, as well as 27 phytoplasma accessions. The resources are available for scientific purpose, but not available to public use. PLAVIT is member of the European Culture Collections’ Organization (ECCO) since 2015 and of the World Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC) since 2014.
In particular the CNR Department of Bio and Agri-Food (DiSBA) with its activities focused on biology and biotechnology, food and sustainable agriculture and characterization and conservation of animal and plant genetic resource, joined the MIRRI-IT project with its main culture collections.
In fact, the CNR Institutes which refer to DiSBA hold important collections of biological material consisting of plants, animals and microorganisms. Totally there are more than 100,000 accessions recorded in the BioGenRes portal, an initiative of DiSBA aiming at the bioinformatics organization and networking of the DiSBA genetic resources. Respect to the microrganisms resources, two major collections of microrganisms at CNR are: ITEM and PLAVIT.
The ITEM Agro-Food Microbial Culture Collection of CNR-ISPA (Institute of Sciences and of Food Production) includes more than 13,000 strains belonging to various agro-food microorganisms (mainly fungi, yeast and bacteria) about 6,500 are available as public resources to the scientific community. ITEM has the ISO 9001- 2015 certification. It is member of the European Culture Collections’ Organisation (ECCO) and of the World Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC).
The PLAVIT (Plant Virus Italy) collection of CNR-IPSP (Institute of Sustainable Plant Protection) includes more than 1100 isolates of plant viruses belonging to 136 species, as well as 27 phytoplasma accessions. The resources are available for scientific purpose, but not available to public use. PLAVIT is member of the European Culture Collections’ Organization (ECCO) since 2015 and of the World Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC) since 2014.
Key persons
CNR-DISBA
- Dr. Francesco Loreto.
Research Director at CNR, has directed the Institute for Plant Protection (CNR-IPP, 2009-2012), and is now the director of the Department of Biology, Agriculture and Food Science (CNR-DiSBA) coordinating the activities of nine CNR Institutes and more than 800 researchers and technologists all over Italy. - Dr. Rosanna Mabilia. Senior Technologist – Department of Biology, Agriculture and Food Science (CNR-DiSBA)
CNR-ISPA
- Dr. Antonio Francesco Logrieco.
Director of Institute of Sciences of Food Production (CNR-ISPA) – Plant pathologist – mycologist involved in various European Projects on fungi, mycotoxins and food safety. Curator of ITEM Collection till 2015. - Dr. Giancarlo Perrone.
Senior Researcher at CNR-ISPA. Food mycologist/Plant pathologist. Expert in culture collection and preservation of filamentous fungi, food mycology, microbiology, He is the Scientific Responsible – Curator of ITEM Culture Collection at CNR-ISPA from 2015.
CNR-IPSP
- Dr. Gian Paolo Accotto.
Director of the Institute of Sustainable Plant Protection (CNR-IPSP), involved in several European and Italian projects on plant viruses and phytoplasmas. - Dr. Marina Ciuffo.
Curator of the PLAVIT Collection, plant virologist at CNR-IPSP, expert in plant virus isolation, characterization, and diagnosis.
Relevant previous projects
- MIRRI (Microbial Resource Research Infrastructure, EU project, VII Framework Programme, ESFRI Initiative, 2012-2015).
- MYCO-KEY Integrated and innovative key actions for mycotoxin management in the food and feed chain – Horizon 2020 No 678781 (2016-2020)
- MYCO-RED Novel integrated strategies for worldwide reduction in food and feed chains – VII Framework Programme (2009-2013).
- INNONETWORK – Sostegno alle attività di R&S per lo sviluppo di nuove tecnologie sostenibili, di nuovi prodotti e servizi (2018-2019).
Description of significant infrastructure
Proteomic, genomic and metabolomic platforms.