Regional Projects

Selected BIOTECSUR Regional Projects

• Biotecsur Platform decided to promote the establishment of regional consortia between the Academic and the Private sector focused on subjects of mutual interest. Hence, Eur 3,000,000 have been assigned for the subvention of Regional Projects.
• In order to ascertain the amounts of the corresponding grants, a participatory demand-identification process was implemented; thus, a series of Regional -and National Seminars in each one the countries- have been held.
• According to this participatory methodology, priorities were determined, specifically for the productive chains involving avian and bovine meat, forestry, and oleaginous crops (soy).
• Therefore, the calls for the subvention of BIOTECSUR Regional Projects were designed pursuant to the input provided by the aforementioned methodology.

POULTRY PRODUCTION CHAIN

Title:
Strengthening of the regional Poultry and Fowl health status using applied biotechnology tools for the development of diagnostic methods and for epidemiological information in the control of the Avian pathogens of commercial importance and or with implications for health.

Requesting Institution:
INTA

Total cost of the actions:
638.400 euros.

Asociated Institutions:

• Universidad de la República de Uruguay (Uruguay)
• Universidad Federal de Rio Grande do Sul. (Brasil)
• Instituto de Higiene- Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de la República de Uruguay. (Uruguay)
• Servicio Nacional de Calidad y Salud Animal. (Paraguay).

Collaborating Institutions:

• Delamer SRL.(Argentina)
• Administración Nacional de laboratorios e Institutos de Salud Anlis. (Argentina)
• Wildlife Conservation Society.(Representación Argentina)
• Instituto zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie.(Italia)

Description of the action and its efficacy:

The project has the general objective of strengthening the Fowl/poultry sanitary status in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay through the application of biotechnology oriented to increase the Epidemiological Vigilance in Avian Flu, Newcastle, Salmonellosis and Campylobacteriosis. With this action the aim is to improve the continuous vigilance programs of these pathogens in wild fowl and commercial poultry as an indispensable tool for early warning to maintain the actual sanitary status.
The idea is to generate the necessary information to obtain a precise epidemiological diagnosis. With this information, a precise risk analysis can be performed to avoid or issue an early warning of the vulneration of a frontier allowing the establishment of the correct sanitary actions. These actions will allow to know, characterize and establish the presence and circulation of these pathogens enabling the generation  of prevention and prophylactic tools to preserve the sanitary status.

BOVINE MEAT PRODUCTION CHAIN I

Title:
Application of Functional genomics and other Biotech tools for the development and control of vaccines against foot and mouth disease virus.

Requesting Institution:
Facultad de Medicina-Universidad de la República –UDELAR-Uruguay.

Total cost of action:
496.698 euros

Associated Institutions:

• Fundación Instituto Leloir (Argentina)
• Inmunova SA.(Pyme, Argentina)
• Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias. Universidad Nacional de Asunción.(Paraguay)
• Biogénesis Bagó SA.(Argentina)
• Universidad Federal de Rio de Janeiro.(Brasil)

Collaborating Institutions:

• Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques & Institut de Recherche Interdiciplinaire. (Francia)

Description of the action and its efficacy:

The general objective is to contribute to the improvement of the international positioning of MERCOSUR´s vaccine manufacturers by incorporating cutting edge technology to the process of development, manufacture and control of the vaccines.
To this end, three levels of action will be taken
- Strengthening the interaction between research groups of the public and prívate sectors of the MERCOSUR countries with biotech industries and R/D companies.
- Developing a specific R/D plan in  FMD Virus vaccines.
-Establishing a training platform among the associated institutions in cutting edge Biotech tools whose activities will be open as well for other professionals and regulatory authorities of the 4 MERCOSUR countries.

BOVINE MEAT PRODUCTION CHAIN II

Title:
Biotech strategies for the control of bacterial, viral and  intracelular protozoan  diseases in bovine cattle of the MERCOSUR region.

Requesting Institution:
INTA
        
Total cost of action:
879.340 euros

Associated Institutions:

• Centro de Biotecnología Universidad Nacional de Pelotas.(Brasil)
• Laboratorios Colón.(Pyme Argentina)
• Universidad Nacional de Asunción. Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias.(Paraguay)
• Universidad de la República.(Uruguay)

Collaborating Institutions:
No

Description of the action and its efficacy:
The Project has two general objectives:
• Generation and evaluation of experimental vaccines against bovine tuberculosis and paratuberculosis.(TTB) and (PTB)
• Development of multiple pathogen macroarrays for the diagnostics of Bovine diseases that pose a  human health risk, cause abortions and are advancing in the Mercosur región. These diseases will be TB, PTB, Brucellosis, Leptospirosis, Bovine Viral diarrhoea, Babesiosis, Neosporosis, Anaplasmosis.

FORESTRY PRODUCTION CHAIN

Title:
Development of an integrated genotipification platform for bioprospection of candidate genes in MERCOSUR Eucalyptus´ germoplasm.

Requesting Institution:
INTA

Total cost of action:
656.858 euros

Asociated Institutions:

• Desarrollo Madereros SA.(Paraguay)
• Mundial Forestación SA.(Uruguay)
• Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias- Universidad Nacional de Asunción (Paraguay)
• Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica de la Universidad Nacional de Asunción ( Paraguay)
• Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuaria - Unidad Recursos Genéticos e Biotecnología (Brasil)

Collaborating Institutions:

• Garruchos SA (Argentina)

Description of the action and its efficacy:

The general objective is to establish a regional scientific-technological network sharing activities and capacities in the 4 participating countries. The groups will work on experiments based on two advanced genomic strategies such as genetic mapping and association mapping to determine the genetic basis of interesting phenotypic properties useful in the selection Eucalyptus plantations for industrial Wood and for energy production.
Specifically the group will develop a genotyping platform to establish markers useful for the improvement of Eucalyptus:
1) Germplasm characterization for haplotipic variation in genes of forestry interest in E. grandiss (Ar/Py), E. globulus (Ar/Uy) and E.urophylla (Br).
2) Localize candidate genes in the gentic maps to be developed (Ar/Br)
3) Realize field studies of selected clones to be able to create association maps. (Ar/ Uy)
4) Realize pilot association maps (Ar/ Br/ Py/Uy).

OILSEED PRODUCTION CHAIN

Title:
Integrated Mercosur´s Genomic Approach for the prospection  genes involved in the response to biotic and abiotic stress.

Requesting Institution:
Estación Experimental Agroindustrial: Obispo Colombres

Total cost of action:
882.350 euros

Asociated Institutions:

• Instituto de Agrobiotecnología de Rosario (Pyme- Argentina) Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales UBA (Argentina)
• Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET - Argentina)
• Instituto Nacional de tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA - Argentina)
• Universidad Federal Do Rio Grande do Sul (Brasil)
  
• Facultad de Ciencias Químicas - Universidad Nacional de Asunción (Paraguay)
  
• Dirección de Investigación Agrícola (DIA) del Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería (Paraguay)
• Instituto de Biotecnología Agrícola (INBIO - Paraguay)
• Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agropecuaria (Uruguay)
• Instituto de Investigación Biológicas-Clemente Estable (Uruguay)
• Embrapa Soja - Centro Nacional de Pesquisa de Soja (Brasil)
• Universidad de la República de Uruguay - Facultad de Agronomía y Facultad de Ciencias (Uruguay)
• Nidera SA (Argentina)

Description of the action and its efficacy:
The general objective of the project is to characterize genes and/or technologies, derived from the functional analysis of genes, capable of adding value to soybean cultures which are under hidryc stress or sanitary stress. The project will operate by articulating a network of private and public research in the MERCOSUR in a framework of social, economiv and environmental sustainability. The consolidation of such a network contemplates the formation of human resources in vacant areas especially Paraguay. The creation of such a ¨virtual¨institute will provide acces to its memebers of cutting edge biotechnology applicable to other production chains.
This project contemplates the developmente of advanced biotech tools contributing to further our insight on stress defense mechanisms to drought conditions and to fungal pathogens, of growing importance. It will also allow to identify and functionally characterize candidate genes involved in these processes to be able to assist the genetic improvement of soybean. The expected results are: the establishment of evaluation protocols, the design and construction of a platform that will allow automatic evalution of resistance to drought  and the degree of resistance to water deficit and fungal pathogens in a wide range of soybean genotypes, the development of methods allowing the early detection of resistant genotypes, the characterization of the genetic and pathogenic of M. phaseolina and P. pachyrhizi; the identification of validated functional markers for the different soybean varieties, the genotyping  of soy germoplasm with contrasting phenotypic characters, the genotyping of preexisting mapping populations, the obtention, genotyping and phenotyping of segregating mutants, the characterization of mayor genes and mapped QTLs for soy resistance, collections of stress specific expressed sequences (ESTs),  ESTs correspomding to sequenced mi RNA, metabolic profiles, allelic variants of  candidate genes, the generation of a TILLING platform, the initiation of candidate gene functional characterization, the formation of human resources, an internet portal, bioinformatic tools and a database.