1. Brief introduction
The institute was established in 1989. There are great developments in the past 15 yeas. 23 staff members include 5 professors (researchers), 8 associate professors (associate researchers) and 6 lectures.
The institute have the key laboratory of Molecular Animal Nutrition of Ministry of Educatio,key laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feed of Ministry of Agriculture, Zhejiang province laboratory of Feed and Animal Nutrition and the the key discipline of Animal Nutrition and Feed of Agriculture Ministry. The lab, covers 7800 square meters areas, has been equipped with advanced facilities with total asset 35 million RMB.
The institute offers master and Ph D degrees on Animal Nutrition and Feed Science, Now the institute has more than 89 graduate students including 59 for Master degree and 30 for Ph D degree. In addition, 67 graduate students for Master degree and 10 for Ph D degree have been graduated from the institute.
In recent three yeas, the institute receives research funds is around 25 million RMB from National 973 program, national natural science foundations, national science/technology research and development programs, international cooperative research programs and local governments and enterprises.
There are four major research aspects including Mesoscopy animal nutrition, Nutrition and animal gene expression, gene engineering, research on feed additives andEmbryo engineering of animal nutrition.
In the past years, the institute was awarded 16 State and Province Sci-Tech progressing prizes, and there were more than 300 publications issued and 4 patents. Two State Sci-Tech progressing prizes including “Research on complete feed of high conversion, meat quality improving and resource exploitation and it’s industrialization” and “Research and industrialization of enzyme and the diets rich in barely or bran by enzyme manipulation”.
Our scientific products have been used more than 230 enterprises over 24 provinces and cities and the production value is over 15 billion RMB.
2. The field of research
2.1 Mesoscopy Nutrition of Animal
A new subject of nanobiotechnology has been developed, which combined with animal nutrition and cell molecular biology, in order to resolve a series of important problems such as the safety of animal productions, the poorer meat quality, the lack of feeding resources and the lower feed conversion, which limit the sustainable development of animal production. A series of good-quality, high-effectiveness, eco-friendly products have been studied in the field of mesoscopy, which are fit for various livestock and poultry, feeding resources, feeding management and hygiene conditions in China as follows: (1) A series of non-pollutant nano-feed additives replacing antibiotics and specially adsorbing toxic materials such as heavy metals, mycotoxins and pesticides, which can make (produce ? ) safe animal productions meeting international standard. (2) Easy-absorption, high-effectiveness nano-feed microelement additives, which can greatly reduce the use of copper, zinc, iron and selenium and protect the eco-environment. (3) Safe nano-feed additives that can effectively improve the lean percentage and meat quality. (4) Sub-micron purificants for water having adsorption and transformation functions.
2.2 Gene engineering and research on feed additives
In this section, our goal is to research and develop safe feed and feed additive using biotechnology, and we focus on three aspects: (1)selection and utilization of target genes from proper microorganisms to engineer enzymes, involving cloning and expression of xylanase, β-glucanase, cellulose, phytase, lactose, protease, bacteriocin; construction and expression of hybrid gene and bifunctional enzyme; and study on the relationship between protein structure and functions; (2) improvement and construction of expression system, e.g. improvement of E.coli and yeast expression systems; construction of high efficient and secretory Bacillus expression system; (3) technology of microorganism fermentation, especially in optimizing conditions of microbial fermentation and purification of protein.
2.3 Research on relation between nutrition and gene expression
It was conducted to research on the relation between nutrition and gene expression based on improving the quality of the livestock products, increasing the own immunity and improving the growth performance of the livestock and poultry, so as to obtain the high efficient regulation approaches to target genes. The main research includes four contents: (1)the research on developmental gene expression of the function gene closely related to meat quality, growth and immunity in the livestock and poultry; (2) the research on the effect of nutrients or bioactive factors on target gene expression related to the growth and body protein deposits of livestock and poultry; (3) the research on the effect of nutrients on target gene expression related to meat quality which means color, smell, flavor, tender，water holding capacity in the livestock and poultry; (4) the research on the effect of nutrient or bioactive factors on some key immune substances such as antibacterial peptide or antibacterial protein in the livestock and poultry.
2.4 Embryo engineering of animal nutrition
Livestock reproduction capabilities, such as ovulation, fertilization，embryo implantation, pregnancy are closely related to their nutrition。The technique of gene expression regulation and transgene can be constructed by studying the relationship between nutrition factors and reproduction capabilities through the theory and technology of nutrition regulation, animal molecular biology, embryo engineering and transgene. Our research group are engaged in research as follows: (1) constructing the technique to promote ovulation rate, increase embryo implantation rate and reduce early embryo dead rate by studying animal nutrition regulation, avoiding these side-effects of utilizing traditional hormone regulation which affects the immunity function of domestic animals and the safety of animals production. (2) Investigating the molecular regulation mechanisms of nutrition factors on reproduction characters by gene engineering technique. (3) Promoting the mechanisms and industrialization research on domestic animals sexing and sex determination by Increasing animal’s reproduction rate in virtue of embryo engineering technique (4) Studying on mammary gland bioreactors of cloning animals and transgenic animals, Constructing mammary specific expression vectors to produce pharmaceutical and feeding bioactive proteins.