Strategic design for Research and Innovation through a participatory approach: lessons learnt in a Veterinary Public Health Institution.

The article describes the results and the experience gained in using a participatory approach to design a strategic development plan (SDP) in a veterinary public health institute. The bottom-up approach utilised was co-designed between the units of "Research and Innovation" and "Training". It included a survey administered to the institute staff (570 people) to collect inputs on three relevant areas: i) innovative research topics; ii) innovation needed to improve services; iii) new tools to carry out activities.

Development and comparative study of a pat/bar real-time PCR assay for integrating the screening strategy of a GMO testing laboratory.

Background: The number and variety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) used globally for the production of food and feed, and potentially circulating in the European Union (EU), is constantly increasing. This implies an additional effort for the EU enforcement laboratories to optimize available resources, to contain costs and time. A well established approach for streamlining the analytical workflow is the introduction of a screening step, typically based on a smart set of real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) screening methods.

Finding the joker among the maize endogenous reference genes for genetically modified organism (GMO) detection.

The comparison of five real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods targeted at maize ( Zea mays ) endogenous sequences is reported. PCR targets were the alcohol dehydrogenase (adh) gene for three methods and high-mobility group (hmg) gene for the other two. The five real-time PCR methods have been checked under repeatability conditions at several dilution levels on both pooled DNA template from several genetically modified (GM) maize certified reference materials (CRMs) and single CRM DNA extracts.