Technologies

The Proof-of-Concept A.L.I.C.E. or "Actuators based on Light sensitive CompositE" aims at the development of innovative materials through 3D/4D printing processes and uses them as actuators in the fields of photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, thermodynamic solar, and other applications such as optical deflectors, optical microvalves, and optical switches.

The present invention relates to the biomedical sector of the treatment of lung diseases and related symptoms. In particular, the present invention provides compositions and methods based on the use of selected polymeric biomaterials, in combination with stem cells and/or their secretome, capable of synergistically improving the development, regeneration and repair of chronic lung injuries and related symptoms.

The insertion of executable programs within QR codes is a new enabling technology for many application contexts in everyday life. Every time Internet access is unavailable, QR code usage is limited to reading the data it contains without any possibility of interaction.

The technology based on cell or tissue cultures is very useful for the production of bioactive compounds. These molecules, depending on the class they belong to, can be used in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry. In particular, the developed technology is addressed to the optimization of bioactive compounds in plant cell/tissue cultures having the biosynthetic pathway of the compound of interest.

INCIPIT technology allowed the implementation of a multifunctional, micro-structured and electroconductive therapeutic product to treat patients with myocardial infarction, the leading cause of death for cardiovascular disease.  Current therapies (drugs, bypass, angioplasty) do not restore the functionality of damaged myocardial tissue.

Mirrors for space applications, besides featuring suitable optical properties, should be light, resistant to mechanical stresses, and unsensitive to light-shadow thermal cycling. The standard optical materials easily fulfill optical and thermal requirements, but are fragile, and the mirrors must be thick (typically 1/6 of the diameter). For this reason they are heavy, and the only available solution is to lighten them, by removing material from the back side, still preserving the necessary mechanical robustness and optical quality.

The object of the technology is the development of a transferable methodology from the laboratory scale to the pilot scale to be validated in the industrial setting for the treatment of basic waste of natural polymers of agro-food or manufacturing industry.

NANOINCICLO is a technology based on the use of nanostructured cyclodextrins (CDs) for the targeted delivery of drugs such as anticancer drugs, photodynamic drugs, anti-inflammatories, antivirals, antibacterials, nutraceuticals and metals with therapeutic and diagnostic properties. Successful CDs for the proposed technology are FDA-approved or in advanced pre-clinical investigational stage and include natural and functionalized, polymeric, and amphiphilic monomeric CDs.

Design and testing of neoproteins with optimized nutritional value, according to needs, avoiding their degradation - thus maintaining a high production yield - and aggregation (which could make them indigestible). Neoproteins are produced and characterized in plant systems as bioreactors. We have already created zeolin, formed by the fusion of a bean seed protein with a portion of a maize seed protein.

The systems simulate, with high reproducibility, the conditions that occur in the different compartments of the gastrointestinal tracts and are promising to accurately mimic the digestive process, with the possibility to evaluate bioaccessibility and bioavailability. Moreover, the systems permit to study the synergic and reciprocal effects between the bioactive compounds characteristic of food and intestinal microbiota.

The technology concerns planar optical antennas composed of thin metal films and dielectric materials for the efficient direction of the light emitted by light sources, such as fluorescent molecules and bio-markers. They consist of a reflector layer, adjacent to the substrate, and a director, semi-reflective, between which the emitter is positioned, integrated into a homogeneous dielectric layer.

Plants can compete favorably with traditional expression systems (mammalian cells, yeasts or bacteria) to produce recombinant proteins/peptides of pharmaceutical/industrial/agrifood interest. This technology names “Plant Molecular Farming”. The CNR-IBBA research team offers the study of new strategies for the expression and optimization of recombinant proteins/peptides in plant-based systems (plant tissues, transgenic plants, plant cell culture). Our pipeline is based on the following modules:

The environment as well as the food production provide a number of both natural and synthetic compounds whose effects on human being as an organism have not yet been determined nor investigated.

This technology describe the synthesis of cross-linked polymeric materials in the form of macroporous gels based on poly (2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate), capable of sequestering the anticoagulant heparin from aqueous solutions, physiological solutions and biological fluids. They are morphologically elastic and mechanically stable materials, and show high specificity and selectivity for heparin as demonstrated by the negligible adsorption of specific blood proteins such as antithrombin III, albumin and total proteins.

We developed an hybrid organic-inorganic composite consisting of a 2D perovskite and a copolymer. At room temperature the composite is highly transparent in the visible region with transmittance > 90%. At higher temperatures, the movement of the polymer chains releases the precursors, allowing the perovskite formation, which results in a colored film. The color changes according to the ‘n’ value of the PVK. PVK with n=1 starts coloring at 70°C, achieving a ∆T_max = 91.5% at 510 nm.