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Aquaculture and Animal Experimentation Facility

The CIIMAR Aquaculture and animal experimentation facility – Bioterium of Aquatic Organisms (BOGA) is a fully dedicated and highest standard infrastructure to the experimentation and maintenance of a wide range of aquatic organisms (macro and microalgae, fish, cephalopods and other invertebrates).

The facility is licensed and inspected by the Portuguese Authority on the protection of animals used in experimentation with scientific or education purposes (DGAV –Direção Geral de Alimentação e Veterinária). CIIMAR is also a signatory of the Transparency Agreement on Animal Research in Portugal.
BOGA offers contract research services for academic and industrial studies related to the impact of environmental conditions (temperature, photoperiod, water pressure, water quality including toxics) and to a wide range of products for aquaculture (feed ingredients, additives) complying with the highest safety standards and animal welfare.
BOGA is organized into thematic, multiuse and support/technical areas. The facility includes state of the art recirculation aquaculture systems (RAS); systems for toxicology and infection studies with specific effluent treatments; a zebrafish dedicated room able to provide fish lines; hyperbaric chambers able to simulate from 0 to 1000 meters of deepness; and a phytoplankton culture facility.

Principal Investigator
Researcher

Helena Peres is a Research Nutritionist for the Center of Marine and Environmental Research (CIMAR), at the University of Porto, Portugal, since 2003, and an Invited Associated Professor at the Sciences Faculty, at the University of Porto. Since 2010, she has been invited to collaborate with the post-graduation course, as an Invited Professor at UNESP- Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, São Paulo State University, AquaNutri, Botucatu, SP, Brazil. Her domain of specialization is fish nutrition, with particular interest to amino acids/protein and energy metabolism; nutritional strategies for reducing environmental impact of aquaculture; nutritional strategies to modulate wellbeing, stress and infection resistance, and Integrated Multi Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA).

RESEARCH GROUPS:
Access to Ecosystems
Analytical Laboratories
Biodiscovery and Omics
Blue Biobank
Ecotoxicology