The University of Crete, also known as Panepistimio Kritis is a project partner of the AQUABIOPRO-FIT consortium. We caught up with professor Christos Tsatsanis to find out why the university of Crete chose to be part of the AQUABIOPRO-FIT consortium and how their expertise in inflammation will be utilized in the project.

My lab focusses on the field of immunology and we have longstanding experience in establishing and studying models of inflammation and inflammatory diseases. In this context, we have set up platforms assessing the anti-inflammatory activity of different extracts including natural products from marine organisms.

Having studied the mechanisms regulating inflammation for a long time, we embarked in identifying factors that have anti-inflammatory properties by targeting selected cellular mechanisms. These factors can be constituents of natural products or nutrients present in food, thus providing scientific evidence that will support the use of such extracts as dietary supplements.

My group will analyze the impact of extracts obtained from aquaculture side streams on inflammation and the gut microbiome, to support their use as dietary supplements with anti-inflammatory and pro-healing activities.

The fact that there is a large mass of side streams with excellent nutritional properties that is not currently used and has potential to provide important dietary supplements.

I expect to gain knowledge on the impact of selected dietary products on inflammation and skin healing and potentially participate in the formulation of new products.

The major impact in my opinion will be in triggering circular economy practices in the field of fisheries and aquaculture and at the same time utilize parts of fish with outstanding nutritional value that can be beneficial to human health.

The biggest challenge is the quality assurance of the side streams to be used. In this aspect side streams directly from fish industry have the advantage of having minimal risk for contaminants since the process is tightly controlled.

Such projects will stimulate comprehensive circular economy practices and utilize food products that were neglected to date.

The Consortium consists of 3 universities, 1 large company, 3 SMEs, 1 NGO and 4 research institutes from 7 European countries. Find out more about University of Crete and the other AQUABIOPRO-FIT project partners in the links below.