NEWSLETTER

EMBRACING THE CHALLENGE OF DIGITAL HUMANITIES
 

 

 

 

DEFINING THE DIGITAL HUMANITIES

Imagine how many disciplines have been impacted by digital transformation technology. The list is long and still growing. And it includes the humanities. Digital humanities is a term used to describe a broad field that covers the use of digital methods by arts and humanities researchers. According to the University of Cambridge, a pioneer in the development of humanities computing, an increasingly important element of the Digital Humanities is discussion of the way in which the digital landscape has changed our view of the humanities and, conversely, the insights that the humanities offer on such central issues of the digital age. 

For Federica, the Digital Humanities is an umbrella term, above all: it’s not a discipline per se, but it connects many disciplines. “Much research that is now labelled under this term has existed for a long time, so there is a strong continuity with the past,” she says. The Digital Humanities can, therefore, be defined as a phenomenon that evolves with society. “You will get a different definition of Digital Humanities depending on who you ask,” she adds. 

 

DAPHNET PROJECT

Federica works in a ‘niche’ area of the Digital Humanities. Her MSCA project DaphNet was launched with the following problem: most multimedia artwork produced since the 1990s is lost due to the lack of adequate preservation strategies. 

To tackle this issue, Federica worked on a multidisciplinary approach to preservation. The DaphNet project aimed to reach a definition of a framework for the preservation of interactive artworks, as well as to ensure their future re-use and flexible access.

Our Alumna had to overcome numerous challenges to achieve her project in January 2019. “I stepped outside my field of expertise, moving from audio to multimedia. I think I initially underestimated some implications of this transition, but I am proud of the skillset I possess now as a result of the process,” she says. 

 

THE EUROPEANA JOURNEY

Working now as a producer and host at Technoculture podcast, Federica has had the opportunity to become familiarised with Europeana, a European collection which provides access to 50 million digitised items.

“Europeana is the largest digital repository of cultural data in the world,” explains Federica. “It aggregates digitised books, paintings, photographs, recordings and films, and it offers a variety of services to dedicated communities: teachers, journalists, scholars and others.” 

Intrigued by this collection, she recently interviewed Harry Verwayen (executive director of the Europeana Foundation) at the annual Europeana Conference in November 2019, which took place in Lisbon. Verwayen defined Europeana as a “co-creation space, where the user community helps to improve and build new narratives through the data.” 

What’s more, in this interview, Verwayen quotes the co-founder of the Museum for the United Nations and keynote speaker at the conference, Michael Edson: “In the next 10-20 years, nobody will remember the product. They will remember the network that came up with new solutions for the challenges we’re facing today.” 

Europeana faced numerous challenges, including climate change. “Harry Verwayen talks about the commitment of Europeana to decrease the carbon footprint of its digital infrastructure, by working with service providers that only work with renewable energy, setting a great example for every other cultural organisation in Europe and in the world,” says Federica. 

 

SHARING IS CARING

Federica stresses the importance of the research community in tackling challenges related to digital humanities. “Nobody works in isolation today, so it is important to be aware that we share data and tools just like we share our history and identity, and most of all it is important to belong to a community,” she concludes.
 

 

INTERESTED?  

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MANNA: NUTRITION AND IMMUNITY: MOLECULAR APPROACHES
 

 

For such reason, diet supplementation with a wide range of nutrition molecules has been a common and widely used approach by farmers and animal production companies to achieve an improvement in animal performance, health, and welfare. Fatty acids like conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) like the docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and the eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), dietary fibres like citrus pectin, and exosomes have all demonstrated to have immunomodulatory properties both in humans and animals. 

Therefore, we aim to mimic what truly happens within the intestinal immune system of the animals when their diets are supplemented with those molecules. Thus, we will work with the most predominant subsets of immune cells there found, namely peripheral mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Moreover, to have more realistic and accurate information of which effects these molecules have on the animals’ immunity, at a cellular and molecular level, we also aim to include proteomic² and transcriptomic³ analyses. The inclusion of these last approaches into our study are highly valuable and constitute the novelty of the work, as none of the studies carried out on these molecules so far had focused on the OMICs⁴ level.

Finally, we predict that through this integral assessment, using both in vitro and system biology⁵ approaches, we can have access to more transcendental and binding information on the impact of nutrition in the immune system of the animals, and consequently choose the best dietary supplements to assure their improvement in health and performance.

 

MY PROJECT SO FAR

During my first year at the University of Milan, I have set up protocols for the isolation and purification of different immune cells from cows’ and chickens’ whole blood. I have also studied the in vitro effects of fatty acids like the CLA and dietary fibres such as citrus pectin on bovine and chicken immune response, respectively. Specifically, I have tested how these molecules impact several immune functions (e.g. apoptosis, viability, chemotaxis, phagocytosis, killing capability…) of bovine and chicken mononuclear cells (lymphocytes and monocytes). In the next months, I will also perform the purification of exosomes from sows’ milk to test the in vitro effects of these and PUFAs (DHA and EPA) on porcine immune cells. I have also started the collection of samples to perform transcriptomic analyses during my second year at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and proteomic analyses on my third year at the INRA in France.
 

HOW DOES BEING PART OF AN MSCA ITN IMPACT ME?

Being part of the European Joint Doctorate on Molecular Animal Nutrition (MANNA), a MSCA ITN, has been of great value for my professional and personal growth. It has not only given me the opportunity to acquire new technical skills on cellular and molecular biology, by working in high quality scientific laboratories all around Europe. But it has also given me the opportunity to get to know a great group of scientists and persons who work towards the same objective. 

The creation of collaborations, bonds, and exchanges of knowledge between each other is one of the most rewarding things for me in all of this process. Moreover, the acquisition of soft skills for a more efficient communication of my research and teaching opportunities has also been possible. Indisputably, the experience of living abroad, discovering new cultures, languages and people has made me grown as a person. 

Finally, being part of a prestigious and respected funding programme such as the Marie-Skłodowska Curie Innovative Training Network has provided me with great recognition within the scientific community.
 

¹ Microbiota is formed by ecological communities of commensal, symbiotic and pathogenic microorganisms [found in and on all multicellular organisms studied to date from plants to animals].

² Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteomes—set of proteins produced in an organism, system, or biological context.

³ Transcriptomics is the study of the transcriptome—the complete set of RNA transcripts that are produced by the genome, under specific circumstances or in a specific cell.

⁴ OMICs refers to the collective technologies used to explore the roles, relationships, and actions of the various types of molecules that make up the cells of an organism.

⁵ System biology is the study of the interactions of the components of various biological entities (including molecules, cells, organs, and organisms).

 

 

GABRIELA ÁVILA MORALES 

EARLY STAGE RESEARCHER OF THE MANNA PROJECT 2

 

 

MANNA: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SUPPLEMENT THE DIET OF BROILER CHICKENS WITH EXTRACTS OF CUCUMBER AND CITRUS?
 

 

 

The European Joint Doctorate in Molecular Animal Nutrition (MANNA) is an EU network whose mission is to provide a double doctorate-level training programme, valid throughout Europe, on innovative technologies applied to animal science and nutrition. The MANNA Joint Doctoral project is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Programme. This is the fourth of a series of articles on the MANNA doctorate, through which we will discover in detail its projects and introducing the related Early Stage Researchers (ESRs).
 

From that moment, many researches have been carried out to look for natural agents with similar beneficial effects to antimicrobial growth promoters and antimicrobial substances. Probiotics, prebiotics, enzymes, medium-chain fatty acids, essential oils and vitamins are already used as alternatives but, during the last few years, plant extracts have attracted the attention of the research community for their promising properties. However, the active compounds of plant extracts and their mechanism of action is not well known, so, the identification and standardisation of their beneficial chemical and/or biological molecules is one of the major challenge for animal industries. Among the variety of novel plant extracts, citrus and cucumber extracts have been chosen to be tested in my MSCA PhD project thanks to their availability, cost, active molecules (i.e. pectin, flavonoids, limonene, carotenoids, polyphenols, dietary fibres, essential oils) and the existing evidence of beneficial effects in poultry. Having a full picture of how these novel dietary ingredients interact with the bird’s microbiota¹, metabolism and immune system could develop new dietary plans that would enhance bird growth, maximise feed efficiency and protect the birds from diseases.

Therefore, the main aim of my study is to test the hypothesis that supplementing the feed of broiler chickens with citrus or cucumber extracts can improve gut health through the modulatory effects of the microbiota, metabolome², and immune system under standard and E. coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge conditions; LPS being an endotoxin able to stimulate the innate immune response. To investigate the aims, two in vivo trials have been carried out at Cochno farm, in Glasgow, to explore if each dietary supplement influences:

• the growth performance of healthy chickens (zootechnical data);

• the intestinal microbiota of healthy chickens;

• the gut morphology of healthy chickens (histology-morphometric measurements);

• the immune system of challenged chickens (acute-phase proteins investigation);

• the metabolome of challenged chickens (metabolomics study).

 

MY PROJECT SO FAR

During my first year at the University of Glasgow, I ran two in vivo trials on broiler chickens. The basal diet used in the trials was formulated and prepared at the Nuscience company in Belgium, while the experimental extracts (citrus and cucumber) were blended with the control diet directly at Cochno farm. During the trials, various biological samples (e.g. tissue and blood) and zootechnical data were collected to evaluate the growth performance of chickens depending on different dietary regiments (control, citrus or cucumber). 

Samples collected from healthy chickens were used to study the microbiota and evaluate the microbial population at gut level of healthy chickens during a period of 28 days. The connection between the status of intestinal villi and the microbiota, as influenced by the diet, was also evaluated through a histology study based on the assessment of morphometric measurements at the gut level.

Samples collected from chickens challenged with E. coli LPS were used to study the acute phase response (APR), evaluating some biomarkers of toxicity (acute phase proteins, APP, in plasma) to understand the effects of LPS on the immune system of chicken fed with different diets. Novel APPs will also be explored and assessed in collaboration with Life Diagnostics, USA, a company partner of my PhD project.

Next year, my study will mainly focus on metabolomics at the University of Zagreb, where the unexplored metabolome of challenged chickens will be used to identify metabolites that could be used as biomarkers of health.
 

HOW DOES BEING PART OF AN MSCA ITN IMPACT ME?

Having a chance to participate in an MSCA ITN such as the MANNA programme is one of the greatest professional experiences an Early Stage Researcher could have and will remain a milestone of my career’s development. MANNA is giving me the opportunity to link Animal Sciences to OMIC technologies, expanding my scientific prospects as a researcher. 

I had the opportunity to run in vivo trials on chickens, increasing my knowledge on nutritional and management requirements to conduct a good experiment on the animals. I also had the opportunity to carry out experimental feed planning and production on my company’s secondment in Belgium (Nuscience), which allowed me to integrate academic and commercial interests.

MANNA is providing me with the opportunity to participate in trainings and conferences that boost my knowledge in Animal Sciences in association with OMIC technologies while also improving my communication and scientific skills.

Next years, I will travel to my second university (University of Zagreb) and one of my industrial partners (Life Diagnostics) to carry out part of my PhD work. So I will have the opportunity to work in different laboratories and environments. Through these collaborations, MANNA will offer me a real-world experience, which is very useful in building my future as a researcher. 

 

¹ Microbiota is formed by ecological communities of commensal, symbiotic and pathogenic microorganisms found in and on all multicellular organisms studied to date, from plants to animals.

² Metabolome refers to the complete set of small-molecule chemicals found within a biological sample (blood, urine, faeces).

 

FRANCESCA RIVA

EARLY STAGE RESEARCHER OF THE MANNA PROJECT 3

 

 

PARTNERING WITH THE NON-ACADEMICS: IS IT AS EASY AS ON PAPER?
 

 

 

EuroLeish¹, an MSCA ITN focusing on the control of parasitic disease leishmaniasis, organised a thought- provoking session during the 12th European Congress of Tropical Medicine and International Health (ECTMIH) in Liverpool, UK in September 2019. Although there are good reasons behind the recent shift towards collaboration between academic and non-academic partners, the experience and lessons learned rarely get the spotlight. The aim of this session was to have a frank discussion about this topic, based on the fellows’ experiences. This was relevant, as at least 4 out of the 15 PhD projects within the EuroLeish network (2015-2018) were designed with partnership in mind. These non-academic partners range from private pharmaceutical companies, small-to-medium enterprises (SME) and non-governmental organisations (NGO). They were involved since the beginning of the network and played an active role, including training and secondment of the fellows for a period of maximum 11 months (remember that mobility clause?). 

All the speakers noted that it is paramount that everything is well-defined from the beginning, avoiding administrative hassles. Secondment at these partners also involved meticulous planning related to clearances, and, if in another country logistical and administrative arrangements. The continuous engagements, in terms of annual meetings and retreats, proved to be useful also in solving communication issues. Furthermore, the experience gained in the non-academic partner was considered an advantage instead of a barrier, becoming an added value to their non-conventional PhDs. The fellows are now more ready than ever to take on new challenges!

 

¹ The EuroLeish (http://www.euroleish.net/) project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie International Training Network grant agreement No 642609.

 

TEMMY SUNYOTO

temmy.sunyoto@gmail.com