Animal sciences

The division is focused on breeding and genetics, genomics, feeding and nutrition, farming and processing technologies, systems and practices applied in all main animal value chains for efficient, high-quality, safe and sustainable production of food of animal origin.

Keywords: Breeding, Eggs, Farming, Feeding, Fish, Genetics, Meat, Nutrition, Pig, Poultry, Rabbit, Ruminant, Slaughtering, Sustainability, Welfare

Main research fields

Research activities aim at developing sustainable animal production systems to address the needs of all main animal production chains through:

  • Analysis of animal genomes, application of animal genetics, genomics, transcriptomics and phenomics for sustainable animal breeding and productions
  • Sustainable conservation and use of animal genetic resources
  • Application of molecular genetics for authentication and traceability of food products
  • Feeding strategies to improve milk, meat and egg quality, nutrient utilization and retention, gut microbial balance, and efficiency
  • Farming strategies to reduce the use of antimicrobials in livestock and to improve animal welfare and health, product safety and quality
  • Assessment and reduction of the environmental impact of animal production systems
  • Precision livestock farming and sustainability of animal production systems
  • Quality indexes and safety assessment of raw and processed foods of animal origin
  • Identification of porcine and poultry muscle abnormalities and effects on meat quality
  • Development of animal welfare indicators at farm, during transport and at slaughter.

People

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Mohamad Ballan

Research fellow

keywords: Genomics, Bioinformatics, Animal Genomics, data mining
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Francesca Bertolini

Associate Professor

keywords: Livestock genomics, Animal breeding and selection, Livestock, Genetics, Bioinformatics, Next Generation Sequencing,
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Daniele Bigi

Assistant professor

keywords: biodiversity, animal genetics, genomics, microsatellites, mitochondrial DNA
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Matteo Bolner

PhD Student

keywords: Genomics, Bioinformatics, Data mining, Animal genomics
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Martina Bordini

PhD Student

Research fellow

Teaching tutor

keywords: Animal science, Molecular biology, Genetics, Gene expression analysis, Transcriptomics, Broilers myopathies
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Samuele Bovo

Junior assistant professor (fixed-term)

keywords: Bioinformatics, Computational biology, Systems biology, Protein interaction networks, Genomics, Animal genomics,
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Federico Correa

Junior assistant professor (fixed-term)

keywords: Weaning, Gut Microbiota, Swine
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Cecilia Crippa

Research fellow

Teaching tutor

Stefania Dall'Olio

Associate Professor

keywords: candidate genes, different traits, animal breeding, biodiversity, genetic markers, traceability
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Martina Felici

Research fellow

keywords: horse, welfare, behaviour, heart rate variability
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Luca Fontanesi

Full Professor

keywords: Livestock genomics, Animal breeding and selection, Livestock, Food authenticity and traceability, Genetics,
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Mara Antonia Gagliano

PhD Student

Research fellow

Teaching tutor

Pantaleo Gemma

PhD Student

keywords: Animal Welfare, Ethics and Legislation, Rabbit Welfare, Equines Welfare
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Diana Luise

Senior assistant professor (fixed-term)

keywords: Animal nutrition and feeding, Pig, Gut health, Microbiota, Weaning

Paolo Macchioni

Assistant professor

keywords: swine, organic pig farming, micronutrients, carcass and lipid characteristics
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Gerardo Manfreda

Full Professor

keywords: Salmonella enteritidis, Salmonella typhimurium, Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter jejuni, E.coli detection and
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Leonardo Nanni Costa

Full Professor

keywords: animal welfare, meat quality, slaughtering, animal transportation, dry-cured ham defects, Thermography, Precision
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Clara Negrini

PhD Student

keywords: Pigs, Intestinal healt, Weaning, Intestinal micriobiota, Nutrition
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Gabriella Orazzo

PhD Student

keywords: Animal science, Animal Nutrition, PIg production, Environmental sustainability
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Barbara Padalino

Associate Professor

keywords: animal welfare, transport, equine, behaviour, PLF
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Frederique Pasquali

Junior assistant professor (fixed-term)

D cat. - technical, scientific and data processing area

keywords: food safety, food of animal origin, foodborne pathogens, microbial genomics, antimicrobial resistance
keywords: Poultry, Rabbit, Meat quality, Broiler breast abnormalities, Meat processing, Seafood quality
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Barbara Polimeni

PhD Student

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Anisa Ribani

Junior assistant professor (fixed-term)

keywords: Animal Genomics and Genetics, Molecular Biology, Food Genomics, Animal biodiversity, Next Generation Sequencing,
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Giuseppina Schiavo

Junior assistant professor (fixed-term)

keywords: Genomics, Bioinformatics, Next Generation Sequencing, Genetics, Food authentication and traceability, Metabolomics

Federico Sirri

Associate Professor

keywords: poultry production, nutrition and feeding, animal welfare, environmental impact, quality traits of meat and egg
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Francesca Soglia

Senior assistant professor (fixed-term)

keywords: Poultry meat quality, Rabbit meat quality, Muscular abnormalities (White Striping, Wooden Breast, Spaghetti Meat,
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Valeria Taurisano

Research fellow

Teaching tutor

keywords: Animal biodiversity; animal genomics and genetics; Next Generation Sequencing; molecular biology
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Paolo Trevisi

Full Professor

keywords: Weaning, Pig, Nutrition and dietay strategies, Gut microbiota, Gut health
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Jacopo Vegni

Research fellow

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Sara Virdis

PhD Student

keywords: Swine production, Animal nutrition, Arginine
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Federica Volpe

PhD Student

keywords: poultry production, sustainability, Life Cycle Assessment
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Paolo Zambonelli

Associate Professor

keywords: genome, single nucleotide polymorphisms, RNA-seq, meat and fat quality, biodiversity, growth efficiency, microarray,
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Marco Zampiga

Adjunct professor

Research fellow

keywords: poultry production, nutrition and feeding, feed efficiency, sustainability, omics technologies, poultry product quality
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Martina Zappaterra

Senior assistant professor (fixed-term)

keywords: meat quality, livestock science, animal welfare, genetics and genomics, micro-RNA markers, transcriptomics,