ecsafeseafood

P03 - UM

The Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition of the Medical Faculty and the Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of the Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Maribor (Slovenia) was established in 1996 to address research at the interface between agriculture and health. The first department is part of the centre of excellence in Biotechnology since 2005. The research performed is related quite exclusively to food and health. Work is mainly focused on food safety and host-pathogen interactions, but a wide range of others issues like detection, function of natural and synthetic compounds are also considered. So far, the team is the only one in the world that has successfully developed intestinal functional cell models, which have been applied for in vitro research of many intestinal events, like bioavailability, toxicity, probiotic isolation, pathogen interactions and mechanisms of transport. In addition, other functional models of liver, adipose tissue and pancreas are in the validation process. The aim of the laboratory is to use these models as a replacement to animals to perform experiments and validation tests, hence contributing to reduce tests on animals as recommended by the EC. These departments have participated in several national and EU-funded projects like the FP6 RISKFOODCONT, Pathogencombat Food, MARAMA II, PROBIOSAFE and Development of new drugs and biochips Development of cell tests to validate new molecules. The Departments are fully equipped cell culture and biochemistry laboratory, and use a large spectrum of methodologies and techniques, including functional cell models, flow-cytometry, microscopy, image stream and functional gene analysis.

Key personnel involved

  Tomaž Langerholc (PhD) is Assistant professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition of the Medical Faculty and the Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of the Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Maribor. He graduated in chemistry and biochemistry. As a postgraduate he continued his studies in biomedicine where he obtained his PhD in the field of biochemistry and molecular biology. He is specialized in the immune response, cell cultures, biomarkers and toxicology issues.

  Eneko Madorran works in the University of Maribor (Medical Faculty), where he runs food analysis, studies on probiotics and cell cultures. He is involved in several EU project (Organic, Balkanet, JoinEUSee, SF-ANTISPOIL, EUfoodNitrate) and bilateral exchanges.