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Austrian Research Centers GmbH (ARC) |
Austrian Research Centers GmbH is Austria's largest non-university center for fundamental and applied research. In the Division of Biogenetics and Natural Resources emphasis is being put on quality and safety of food and agricultural products, and on the assessment and protection of water and terrestrial resources. Knowledge, research capabilities, services and products in these areas are provided to industrial and private customers as well as to public authorities. The Department of Bioresources with a staff of about 50 scientist has 4 research groups with specialized areas of research and services:
- microarray development for food and water diagnostics, services for microarray printing and data analysis.
- Europe's largest plant and microbial Genome Resource Center (PIC-ME)
- Soil microbiology research with emphasis on nitrogen cycling and nutrient efficiency
- Fungal genomics research with emphasis on secondary metabolism, nitrogen cycling and pathogenicity-related topics; services for fungal pathogen detection using multiplex-PCR and microarray techniques
The ARC unit to participate in the RHIBAC project is a new unit that has been established jointly between ARC and the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU). This is headed by Dr Joseph Strauss whose company Ecowork Laboratories Consulting GesmbH (EWL) has been a participant in the MicroNfix project, where it isolated PGPR from wheat roots and other sources. In RHIBAC, ARC-sr will continue to characterise the PGPR isolated in MicroNfix and develop modified strains for optical imaging of root colonisation and investigation of their plant growth promotion and nitrogen fixation mechanisms.
Project : FP6-FOOD-CT-2006-036297 funded by the FP6 programme of the European Union (Food Quality and Safety)
