Researchers and fellows from the MarBiotech group of CCMAR participated in the ALGAEUROPE congress that took place in Paris at the beginning of December. Several algal biomass specialists gathered at this congress to understand the evolution of the sector in terms of research, production, and commercialization.

During the three days of the congress, our researchers made several oral presentations and presented their posters.

The researcher, João Varela, presented his work entitled ALGARED+: old and new microalgae for novel bioactivities, in which he highlighted some results of the project. In the presentation, he talked about the new species of microalgae isolated in the laboratory and explained that some microalgae extracts have antitumor and osteogenic activities. In turn, our researcher Gangadhar Katkam explained how he isolated and identified, for the first time, two compounds produced by the microalgae species Isochrysis galbana T-ISO - Loliolide and Isololiolide - that could be used as a method of prevention and treatment of liver cancer in humans.

Researchers Luísa Barreira and Etiele Morais presented their posters of the GreenTreat project.

Tamára Santos, a PhD student, exhibited her work plan with a poster entitled Microbiome-mediated improvement of industrial produced microalgae, where she will use high-throughput methodologies and next-generation sequencing to determine the microbiome associated with the industrial production of microalgae. Mariana Carneiro, also a PhD student, in collaboration with CCMAR and Necton presented her work with LEDs and explained that the use of these lights at night allows a significant increase in biomass at the beginning of the exponential phase, with a good price-performance ratio, without stressing the microalgae.

The doctoral student, Lisa Schüler, also presented her poster about Isolation of carotenoid-hyperproducing mutants of Tetraselmis sp. CTP4 by fluorescence-activated cell sorting. In collaboration with CCMAR and the company Necton S.A., Inês Maia, presented her work that compares the growth of three diatom species and their photosynthetic efficiency.