The project will sustain  sustain international research in critical and/or emerging topics in tropical marine ecosystems that, in context of global change and new ecosystems man created, with Luanda Bay as a study case. Luanda Bay is a rich ecosystem that provides a wide diversity of services. Due to its relevance, multiple pressures on surroundings areas are threatening the ecosystem. Solid waste and untreated domestic effluents are released daily into the Bay, hampering the practice of nautical sports, and the subsistence of fishing and leisure activities. This project will provide biodiversity databases and a deeper understanding of the determinants underlying poor water quality, specifically toxigenic species presence, in LB, in comparison to a reference site, Mussulo bay. An ecosystem-based approach, crucial for planning the future development of LB, is based on two main principles: maintaining and improving the ecosystem health, and balancing derived society values.  

GreenTreat aims to develop a microalgal-based, integrative, sustainable process of tertiary wastewater treatment (WWT) and treated water reuse: a pilot process using microalgae to remove excess nitrogen and phosphorus along with pharmaceutical products, which conventional WWT technologies often fail to eliminate. In GreenTreat, the traditional aerobic/anaerobic bacterial treatment used in most wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) will be complemented with photobioreactors newly designed by Bluemater, a Portuguese biotechnology company, in which a microalgae (Tetraselmis sp., CTP4) recently developed by CCMAR is expected to complete the elimination of nutrients and increase the removal rates of pharmaceuticals. These photobioreactors are an innovative design conceived for the remediation of contaminated waters by microalgae and were selected for their good productivity/cost relationship. In addition, flotation will be used for microalgae harvesting and biomass recovery. CTP4 is a highly stress-tolerant microalgal isolate able to outcompete most contaminants even in wastewater, withstand high light intensity without apparent photoinhibition, and survive temperatures as high as 50°C, all indispensable features in outdoor cultivation. CTP4 is also able to deplete nutrients rapidly. Under low nutrient levels its lipid content can increase up to 50% of its dry weight. Hence, to decrease costs and carbon footprint of WWTP, lipids of the generated microalgal biomass will be used for biodiesel production, whereas the remaining biomass will be used as feedstock to produce biogas. During the project, the efficiency of nutrient and pharmaceutical removal and the population dynamics of the bacteria/microalgal communities in the pilots will be tested under different operational conditions (hydraulic and sludge retention times) and under different seasonal constraints (e.g. winter and summer extreme temperature and light conditions, and contaminants load due to population fluctuations). Treated water will be assessed for definition of water reuse scenarios. Lastly, a lifecycle assessment of the proposed technology will be conducted and its economical viability assessed.   Funding information: Project funding reference: ALG-01-0145-FEDER-031567 • POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031567 Financiamento concedido: € 232.459,96 Financiamento FEDER concedido: € 114.207,58 Financiamento nacional concedido: € 118.252,38 Financiamento próprio: € 3.000,00      

The accumulation of metals in the environment has several negative impacts, which tend to be aggravated by their intensive demand and utilization. This situation is accompanied by the depletion of some primary resources, namely those of platinum group metals (PGMs). Hence, their recovery from secondary sources, namely wastes and wastewaters, using economically and environmentally sustainable techniques is a top priority. In this regard, the present project aims the recovery of strategic metals (Cu, Zn and Fe) from two highly metals-contaminated effluents (an extreme contaminated acid mine drainage, AMD, and spent solutions from Zn plating industries) and the recovery of PGMs (e.g. Pd, Pt) from leachates from spent automotive catalysts. For that purpose, a pioneering approach that combines the potential of liquid-liquid extraction as separation technique with the versatility of bio-recovery strategies based on the use of bacterial communities, solutions from their activity or plant extracts, are being tested. The use of diverse biologic agents (and conditions) that can act through several mechanisms such as bio-reduction or bio-precipitation, allows the metal to be recovered in a non-combined or combined form, and may result on different products or particles sizes, thus broadening with advantage their possible properties and applications.

GreenVet explores for the first time the potential use of selected marine halophytes in veterinary parasitology aiming to control infections with gastrointestinal nematodes in small ruminants, and also to improve animal health and meat quality. GreenVet involves a multidisciplinary R&D approach comprising agronomists, biologists, chemists and veterinarians from Portugal (CCMAR/FMV) and France (INRA), and focuses on species with ethnoveterinary uses, abundant in the EU, with high tannin content and promising bioactivities, used as animal fodder/feed and high palatable to small ruminants. GreenVet will contribute for the training of students in veterinary parasitology and natural products, to the advance of important economic sectors such as small ruminant’s production and natural veterinary products and thus, for regional progress, advance knowledge on biotechnological uses of halophytes, add for the sustainable use of natural resources and answer different societal challenges.

Referência do projeto: ALG-01-0145-FEDER-030014 e PTDC/BIA-CEL/30014/2017 Financiamento FEDER: 106.663,57 Financiamento Orçamento de Estado: 133.276,60 Região de intervenção: Algarve e Norte Data de aprovação: 27 de junho de 2018 Designação beneficiários: Universidade do Algarve, Centro de Ciência do Mar do Algarve (CCMAR) e C.E.S.P.U. - Cooperativa De Ensino Superior Politécnico e Universitário Crl   A transmissão fiel do material genético para as células filhas depende da ligação correcta entre os cromossomas e o fuso mitótico. Erros aqui podem resultar na morte das células ou a mesmo levar à formação de cancro. A segregação cromossómica é conseguida pela interacção entre os microtúbulos do fuso e os cinetocoros nos centrómeros. Os centrómeros de humanos são definidos epigenéticamente por nucleossomas contendo CENP-A, que define o local de montagem do cinetocoro. A segregação cromossómica é conseguida através da regulação fina das interacções Cinetocoro-Microtubulo (K-MT) e a actividade correcta de activadores / inibidores em estádios específicos da mitose. Apesar de sua importância, como são os cinetochores montados, regulados e como funcionam durante a segregação cromossómica são fenómenos ainda não totalmente compreendidos. Com este projecto pretende-se avançar a compreenção dos mecanismos de segregação cromossómica, particularmente a regulação da associação cinétocoro-microtubulos.Em trabalho preliminar a este projeto identificámos o gene Mob4 humano como um novo elemento essencial à segregação correta dos cromossomas. Verificámos ainda que na sua ausência o CENP-A não se acumula nos cinetocóros mitóticos. Mob4 é um membro da família de genes Mob, reguladores da proliferação celular que atuam através da via Hippo. O nosso trabalho em Zebrafish confirmou Mob4 como um gene essencial, necessário para a proliferação celular. Portanto, não só encontrámos um novo gene mitótico essencial, mas os resultados sugerem que encontrámos um novo mecanismo de manter o estado epigenético da cromatina centromérica. Pretendemos agora avançar ainda mais nestes resultados e definir as funções moleculares da Mob4, elucidar o seu papel na estrutura da cromatina centromérica em células humanas, bem como definir como e por que é necessário para a segregação cromossómica. Vamos ainda explorar a sua possível correlação com tumorigénese, testando a sua capacidade de transformação de células e de supressão de células tumorais, bem como a sua interação com os componentes da via Hippo. Finalmente, queremos confirmar estas descobertas num contexto biológico relevante estudando a Mob4 num modelo animal (Zebrafish) durante os estádios iniciais do desenvolvimento. Especificamente, determinaremos se a CENP-A falha a acumulação no centrómero ou se é o pool de CENP-A centromérico que fica instável. Dado muitas proteínas centroméricas não serem dependentes de CENP-A para uma localização adequada, estudaremos a localização de outras proteínas centroméricas e do cinetocoro. Analizar-se-á a dinâmica dos K-MT, e determinaremos se aMob4 é um ativador de cinase como os outros Mobs. Sumáriamente, esperamos ampliar significativamente o conhecimento do processo de segregação cromossómica (um processo celular básico essencial), pela caracterização dum novo elemento essencial, Mob4, tanto em célulasde cultura como num organismo vertebrado.          

Project reference: PTDC/BIA-BMA/30262/2017 FEDER Funding: 83.041,62 OE Funding: 124,562.43 Region of intervention: Algarve Approval date: 28 March 2018 Designation beneficiaries: Algarve Centre of Marine Sciences (CCMAR)   As atmospheric CO2 increases, so does the amount of CO2 dissolved in the ocean which-in turn-causes ocean pHto decline, a process known as ocean acidification. There are grave concerns about the impact of ocean acidification on marine biodiversity and ecosystems. The effects of high HCO3-/low pH on non-calcifying species such as fish are poorly understood. Studies on olfaction are limited to behavioural alterations of coral reef fish exposed to low water pH; there are no studies on coastal species and/or with economical importance. Furthermore, although there is evidence that atmospheric CO2 concentrations predicted to occur by the end of this century will have strong effects on olfactory-mediated behaviour of reef fish, nothing is known about the cellular mechanisms involved. Ocean acidification is predicted to change the ionic content of seawater; the capacity of fish to adapt to such changes clearly depends on their ability to detect them. This project aims to evaluate the effects of ocean acidification on the perception of different odorants by the olfactory epithelium and subsequent processing of sensory input at different levels in the central nervous system.  Concurrently, the capacity of fish to detect changes in water ion concentration underlying ocean acidification will be evaluated. This will be carried out on an important ecological and aquaculture species, the Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis), but results will be applicable to many other species.              

The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory (EMSO - http://emso.eu/) is a consortium of partners sharing in a common strategic framework scientific facilities. Formally it is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), legal framework created for pan-European large-scale research infrastructures. This consortium gathers 8 countries (France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, UK and Spain) and constitutes one of the underwater parts of COPERNICUS.  EMSO has the scientific objective of long-term monitoring, mainly in real-time, of environmental processes related to the interaction between the geosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, including natural hazards. It is composed of several deep-seafloor and water column observatories, deployed at key sites around European waters, from the Arctic to the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean, to the Black Sea, thus forming a widely distributed pan-European infrastructure (http://emso.eu/observatories) EMSO-PT organizes the Portuguese participation in the EMSO-ERIC initiative, bringing together 16 research institutions in the frame of the "Sistema de Apoio à Investigação Científica e Tecnológica (SAICT), FCT". The Portuguese contribution is in two areas of the infrastructure, located in Mid-Atlantic ridge near Azores (Azores node) and Gulf of Cadiz and North Portugal continental shelf (Iberian Margin node). CCMAR is the responsible for the water column observatory of the Iberian Margin node.