Who we are
ISA R&D is a spin-off from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Faculty of Environmental, Food and Agricultural Sciences.
We Have One Goal
To support the transition to a sustainable agriculture
by developing, sustaining, and supporting the implementation of innovative solutions in the agrifood chain.
The mission of ISA R&D meets the concepts and framework defined in the EU Regulation 2019/1009 (5 June 2019) for the placement on the market of fertilizers and biostimulants.
Our Target
The resilience of agriculture to future threats such as climate change, food insecurity, land degradation, as well as availability and cost of fertilizers, is becoming a critical issue in primary production worldwide.
The European Community and stakeholders are pushing towards a transition to sustainable food production, ensuring that everyone has access to sufficient, safe, nutritious and sustainable food.
According to the Farm-to-Fork Strategy, “we need to redesign our food systems which today account for nearly one-third of global GHG emissions, consume large amounts of natural resources, result in biodiversity loss and negative health impacts … in particular for primary producers” [1].
At the same time, the European Green Deal target to an EU transition into a “modern, resource-efficient, and competitive economy” [2], ensuring:
- no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050
- economic growth decoupled from resource use
- no person and no place left behind
Such pressure on agriculture requires a modern vision on sustainable production systems, in which natural/green inputs such as biostimulants, elicitors of plant’s natural defense, and appropriate agricultural management practices may represent an essential tool both from farmers and consumers perspectives.
[1] https://food.ec.europa.eu/horizontal-topics/farm-fork-strategy_en
[2] https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en
We Have One Goal
To support the transition to a sustainable agriculture
by developing, sustaining, and supporting the implementation of innovative solutions in the agrifood chain.
The mission of ISA R&D meets the concepts and framework defined in the EU Regulation 2019/1009 (5 June 2019) for the placement on the market of fertilizers and biostimulants.
Our Target
The resilience of agriculture to future threats such as climate change, food insecurity, land degradation, as well as availability and cost of fertilizers, is becoming a critical issue in primary production worldwide.
The European Community and stakeholders are pushing towards a transition to sustainable food production, ensuring that everyone has access to sufficient, safe, nutritious and sustainable food.
According to the Farm-to-Fork Strategy, “we need to redesign our food systems which today account for nearly one-third of global GHG emissions, consume large amounts of natural resources, result in biodiversity loss and negative health impacts … in particular for primary producers” [1].
At the same time, the European Green Deal target to an EU transition into a “modern, resource-efficient, and competitive economy” [2], ensuring:
- no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050
- economic growth decoupled from resource use
- no person and no place left behind
Such pressure on agriculture requires a modern vision on sustainable production systems, in which natural/green inputs such as biostimulants, elicitors of plant’s natural defense, and appropriate agricultural management practices may represent an essential tool both from farmers and consumers perspectives.
[1] https://food.ec.europa.eu/horizontal-topics/farm-fork-strategy_en
[2] https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en
About ISA R&D
ISA R&D is a spin-off from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Faculty of Environmental, Food and Agricultural Sciences. ISA R&D has been founded to translate fundamental research to the private sector, and to promote the development of sustainable solutions in agriculture at high Technology Readiness Level (TRLs).
The founders are professors from agronomy, biochemistry, and microbiology disciplines, with a long-term scientific experience in the field of microbial and non-microbial biostimulants (including PGPR and other beneficial microbes, mycorrhiza, and Trichoderma, among others), as well as in the sustainable management of agro-ecosystems to steer efficient soil C and nutrient cycling, plant metabolism, and elicitors.
The founders
Andrea Fiorini
Researcher at the Department of Sustainable Crop Production. His research focuses on the interactions between soil life, soil nutrient cycling and agronomy, especially on the controls that soil management practices and their effects on soil fauna, microorganisms and plant roots exert on the cycles of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus.
Currently heading the field management at the CERZOO experimental research station in Piacenza (the experimental farm of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore).
Luigi Lucini
Professor of biochemistry dealing with plant secondary metabolism, stress response and stress resilience mechanisms, also in connection with the use of plant biostimulants. Luigi Lucini is the head of the metabolomics facility at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore serves as representative for UNICHIM at TC/455 Technical Committee involved in the definition of EU Regulation 2019/1009 implementation criteria in Europe and is in the GL04 working group “biostimulants” from UNICHIM.
Edoardo Puglisi
Professor of agricultural microbiology at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. The main research activities of his group are focused on the isolation and application of soil microorganisms with biostimulant, biodefence or bioremediation properties, the genomics of bacteria and fungi for safety and efficiency assessment, the understanding of plant-soil-microbes interactions at the rhizosphere level, the development and application of microbiological and biochemical indexes of soil quality.
Marco Trevisan
Marco Trevisan, Dean Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environmental sciences, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Leader Chemistry area at DiSTAS – Department for Sustainable food process Full Professor of Agricultural Chemistry, teacher of Chemistry and Biochemistry of Primary Productions. He has studied since 1983 the environmental fate of pesticide and the behaviour of pesticide residues on crop and food. He is expert in the field of pesticide environmental fate, analytical determination, consumer health and the effects of biostimulatns on plant physiology and metabolomics.
The founders
Andrea Fiorini
Researcher at the Department of Sustainable Crop Production. His research focuses on the interactions between soil life, soil nutrient cycling and agronomy, especially on the controls that soil management practices and their effects on soil fauna, microorganisms and plant roots exert on the cycles of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus.
Currently heading the field management at the CERZOO experimental research station in Piacenza (the experimental farm of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore).
Luigi Lucini
Professor of biochemistry dealing with plant secondary metabolism, stress response and stress resilience mechanisms, also in connection with the use of plant biostimulants. Luigi Lucini is the head of the metabolomics facility at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore serves as representative for UNICHIM at TC/455 Technical Committee involved in the definition of EU Regulation 2019/1009 implementation criteria in Europe and is in the GL04 working group “biostimulants” from UNICHIM.
Edoardo Puglisi
Professor of agricultural microbiology at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. The main research activities of his group are focused on the isolation and application of soil microorganisms with biostimulant, biodefence or bioremediation properties, the genomics of bacteria and fungi for safety and efficiency assessment, the understanding of plant-soil-microbes interactions at the rhizosphere level, the development and application of microbiological and biochemical indexes of soil quality.
Marco Trevisan
Marco Trevisan, Dean Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environmental sciences, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Leader Chemistry area at DiSTAS – Department for Sustainable food process Full Professor of Agricultural Chemistry, teacher of Chemistry and Biochemistry of Primary Productions. He has studied since 1983 the environmental fate of pesticide and the behaviour of pesticide residues on crop and food. He is expert in the field of pesticide environmental fate, analytical determination, consumer health and the effects of biostimulatns on plant physiology and metabolomics.