Against the background of the growing resistance of pathogens to antibiotics, and taking into account the requirement to the refuse of using antibiotics as growth factors and for the prevention of diseases of agricultural animals, the search for effective ways to modulate human and animal health is a priority task. The project “Veterinary probiotic drugs for targeted modulation of animal health” is aimed at creating a theoretical base and practical approaches to the implementation of this task by influencing the processes of interaction between the microbiota and the host.
Research in 2020 was carried out in four interrelated directions:
1. Microbiological direction: the study of the microbiota species composition of the gastrointestinal tract of animals in different conditions and the formation of a collection of microorganisms – potential probiotics.
2. Engineering direction: the development, creation, adjustment and testing of the hardware and software complex of the artificial gastrointestinal tract model.
3. Biotechnological direction: the study of the probiotic activity of drugs, in order to select the conditions that give the most active drug. Isolation of active compounds of probiotic bacilli and the development of feed based on it.
4. Veterinary direction: the assessment of influence of the developed probiotics on the animals’ gastrointestinal tract microbiota, including metagenomics methods.
The unprecedented situation in 2020 (economic sanctions against Russia and the pandemic) has increased the urgency of the task of creating a unique Russian artificial model of the gastrointestinal tract for farm animals. In the course of work in 2020, such a system was created, tested and proven to be reliable, cost-effective, easy to use and gives reproducible results. The creation of the material base of the infrastructure of the Research Laboratory “Agrobiotechnology Center” continued, the expansion of research carried out by its research team. The level of equipment of the agrobiotechnology laboratory at DSTU creates the preconditions for both scientific research in the development of effective biological products for the needs of an environmentally friendly agricultural sector, and for educating a new generation of personnel for agricultural biotechnology.
The novelty of a systematic approach to the creation of probiotic preparations based on the use of “algorithms” containing components that affect the effectiveness of the created probiotics attracts great interest of the scientific community: the Center’s website has been created, scientific conferences have been held in face-to-face and online format “State and Development Prospects of Agribusiness” (“INTERAGROMASH 2021” Conference) and “Innovative Technologies in Science and Education” (“ITSE 2020” Conference).
The leading scientist and members of the research team of the Center in full-time and online format took part in conferences in the direction of scientific research: XIV International Scientific and Practical Conference “State and Development Prospects of Agribusiness” (“INTERAGROMASH 2021” Conference, Rostov-on-Don, RF), Open seminar “Automation of production processes” (Rostov-on-Don, RF), School-conference School for Young Researchers 2020 (Rostov-on-Don, RF), International scientific conference “Energy efficiency and energy saving in technical systems” EETS-2020 (Rostov-on-Don, RF), VIII International Scientific and Practical Conference “Innovative Technologies in Science and Education” (“ITSE 2020” Conference, section Innovative approaches for formulation of veterinary probiotics aimed at the animal health modulation (under the grant of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia № 075-15-2019-1880), II International conference “Human and Animal” (Saint-Petersburg, RF), 14th International Conference on Probiotics, Prebiotics, Gut Microbiota and Health – IPC 2020 (Prague, Czech Republic).
A new educational program “Zootechnics” has been developed according to the declared direction of scientific research. Three employees of the Research Laboratory ABTC DSTU underwent advanced training on the topic of scientific research.
In 2020, the leading scientist M.L. Chikindas, together with the laboratory staff, created 4 RIDs, published 8 articles in scientific journals indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection database, including 2 articles in scientific journals included in the first quartile (Q1).
The results obtained during the implementation of the work in 2020 will serve as the basis for the implementation of the subsequent stages of research carried out in order to achieve the results of the federal project “Development of scientific and scientific-industrial cooperation”: the creation of world-class laboratories under the leadership of leading world-famous scientists, including compatriots, living abroad.