About Eu-Sol
Find out more about this project.
An introduction to the aims of EU-SOL and how we plan to achieve them. Plus read about the organisations and people working on this project.
IT: ENEA
Full name: Italian Agency for New technologies, Energy and the Environment
Location: Italy
About Us
ENEA is the second largest public research organization in Italy. It is active in the areas of energy (including nuclear, solar, wind, and bio-energy), environmental protection, high performance computing, and biotechnology.
ENEA and Eu-Sol
ENEA is active in Module 2 where it deals with the characterization of genes that control the synthesis of the nutritionally important compounds, carotenoids. The red pigment of tomato, lycopene, is a carotenoid whose consumption prevents several chronic diseases, such as cancer. ENEA’s role, together with other EU-SOL partners, is to understand which are the main genes controlling lycopene accumulation in cultivated tomato and its wild ancestors. Another nutritionally important carotenoid, beta-carotene, is the nutritional precursor of vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiency is widespread worldwide and is one of the primary causes of child morbidity and mortality in developing countries. The potatoes we normally eat contain very little beta-carotene, and ENEA has successfully taken a GM approach to “biofortify” potatoes with beta-carotene. The resulting, “Golden” potatoes contain 3600-fold more provitamin A than the parent variety.
ENEA is also active in module 5, whose main aim is to develop genetic tools. In particular, ENEA coordinates the effort to design and build “DNA chips” for the characterization of the activity of the tomato genes, and, together with other EU-SOL partners, is sequencing the gene-rich region of the tomato genome. These tools will allow the thorough characterization of the tomato genome in both traditional and modern, highly productive, varieties.
Staff (working on EU-SOL)
- Dr Giovanni Giuliano, Senior Research Scientist
- Dr Raffaela Tavazza, Senior Research Scientist
- Dr Gaetano Perrotta, Research Scientist
- Dr Carlo Rosati, Research Scientist
- Dr Gianfranco Diretto, postdoctoral fellow
- Dr Federico Scossa, postdoctoral fellow
- Patrizia Pallara, Research Associate
- Velia Papacchioli, Technician
- Giulia Falcone, Ph.D. student
