Naturally
The sixth Symposium of doctoral students of the Faculty of Science was held in Zagreb from 23 to 24 April. At the symposium Phd student Mirela, presented the results of chemical characterization of invasive plant species extracts.
The poster was selected as one of the top five posters judged by an expert panel and is available at the link.
Project leader, Ph.D. Danijela Poljuha gave a plenary lecture on the topic of invasive alien species as a food source and phytopharmaceuticals.
The first preliminary results of the analysis of antioxidant capacity of extracts of four invasive plant species and the results obtained by RP-HPLC profiling were presented at the lecture.
Also, H. tuberosus and R. pseudoacacia species were presented as a valuable source of raw materials that can be used in the diet.
The good news are coming from the NATURALLY team!
We published a paper entitled LC – DAD – MS Phenolic Characterization of Six Invasive Plant Species in Croatia and Determination of Their Antimicrobial and Cytotoxic Activity in the scientific journal Plants.
This study provides the first LC-MS phytochemical review of six invasive alien plant species in Istria County (Croatia): Ailanthus altissima, Ambrosia artemisiifolia, Conyza canadensis, Dittrichia viscosa, Erigeron annuus and Xanthium strumarium.
This activity involved Danijela Poljuha, project leader and project associates Barbara Sladonja, Ivana Šola, Jacobus N Eloff, Maja Mikulič Petkovšek and PhD student Mirela Uzelac.
Read the whole paper at the link.
On Thursday, January 27, 2022, a virtual Interim meeting of the project “Nature as an ALLY: Alien invasive plants as phytopharmaceuticals – NATURALLY” was held.
The project team members from the METRIS Materials Research Center, Biotechnical Faculty from the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), and the Institute of Agriculture and Tourism participated in the meeting. The meeting aimed to present the project activities so far and the first results and to agree on further steps and phases of the project implementation.
In the beginning, project leader, Danijela Poljuha from the Institute of Agriculture and Tourism briefly presented the activities carried out (employment of doctoral and postdoctoral students, procurement of equipment and consumables and performed analysis and training). TAfterwards, the foreseen activities in the project (planned analyzes, training, procurement plan for chemicals) were announced. The project’s first results, which were presented at two symposia during 2021, were also presented here. At the end of the meeting, the following goals of the project were highlighted, and the organization of work was agreed.
Merry Christmas and Happy New year 2022 wish you Daniela, Mirela, Daniela, Ida and Barbara!
See you next year!
We conducted a Preliminary Environmental Risk Assessment of for plants A. altissima, R. pseudoacacia, H. tuberosus and S. canadensis. The assessment was carried out according to the EPPO (European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization) method described in OEPP PM5 / 6 2012. This activity involved Danijela Poljuha, project leader, Barbara Sladonja, project associate, Ida Linić, postdoctoral student and doctoral student Mirela Uzelac. The assessment resulted with indication for detailed analysis for the risk of invasiveness.
We were delighted by the news that the Croatian Science Foundation is carefully monitoring the activities on its projects and that likes to promote them.
Our project (and smiling faces) was also included in their report on the 4th Croatian Symposium on Invasive Species held in Zagreb.
You can find the entire report on the Foundation’s website: https://hrzz.hr/zakladini-projekti-na-4-
hrvatskom-simpoziju-o-invazivnim-vrstama/
At the 4th Croatian Symposium on Invasive Species held in Zagreb on 29-30 November 2021, members of the institute project team Barbara Sladonja, Ida Linić, Mirela Uzelac, and Danijela Poljuha presented the results of the project activities.
An oral presentation entitled INVASIVE ALIEN PLANT SPECIES IN CROATIA AS NEW ECOSYSTEM SERVICES PROVIDERS was given by Danijela Poljuha, and the team also presented the results of field analyses with a poster entitled AERIAL MAPPING OF FLOWERING JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE: A COMPARISON OF TWO
Summaries of the presentation are available at the link.
These days, our small team has been working intensively on completing analyzes, processing data and preparing the first presentations of project results.
At the Mini-Symposium of the Croatian Society for Plant Biology, Danijela Poljuha presented the NATURALLY project in the section intended for the presentation of current projects, and the first results of the chemical characterization of extracts of invasive plant species were presented by postdoctoral researcher Ida Linić and PhD student Mirela Uzelac with two poster presentations.
Posters are available at the link.
Project NATURALLY is today presented to students of International Studies of Bioindustrial Techniques as part of the course Professional Project. The Faculty of Science (FOS) and the Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology (FFTB) have been involved in a joint graduate study of the University of Zagreb and the University of Orléans (France) since 2009. The programme is available to Molecular Biotechnology FFTB students and Molecular Biology FOS students of the University of Zagreb. This year we presented the project NATURALLY to students to show the ongoing applied research in biotechnology in Croatia.
