AREAS OF RESEARCH

1. Recycling and waste valorisation (by-products and discards) and effluents from the fisheries industry and from transformation and processing of marine foods. Collecting of value added products such as jellies, cartilage, proteolytic enzymes, chondroitin-sulphate, bioactive peptides, hydroxyapatite, etc.  Development of a Marine Biorefinery from wastes of marine origin.
2. Microbial bioconversion and purification (production of biomass, primary and secondary metabolites) of new sources of protein (marine peptones) recovered from marine food industry waste.
3. Microbiological treatment of oil spills (bioremediation) in marine environments. Application of dispersants and coast cleaning agents, in ecotoxicologically safe conditions, to eliminate oil adhered to rock faces.
4. Mathematical, mechanistic and empirical modelling (factorial design) of bioprocesses (enzymatic, microbial, animal growth, kinetics of antioxidants, etc.) and complex dose-response relationships: interactions among several effectors, opposite effect responses: hormesis, dose-response dynamics.
5. Microbial production of probiotics, bacteriocins, astaxanthin, hyaluronic acid, etc., in different operating procedures and culture techniques. Separation-purification stages of microbial metabolites optimisation.
6. Waste and by-products valorisation from the agro-food industry (fractions of cereals, potato peeling, etc.) for the recovery of antioxidants, prebiotics, etc.

CONTACT

Xosé Antón Vázquez Álvarez

email: jvazquez@iim.csic.es

Phone: +34 986 231930 ext. 860340