Technologies

The development of functional foods is often limited by industrial manufacturing processes, for example, for the production of baked foods, the use of high cooking temperatures causes denaturation of proteins, destruction of vitamins, alteration of fatty acids, etc. The protection of these components is essential in the production of gluten-free foods as they are generally poor in proteins and vitamins.

Anthocyanins are antioxidant polyphenolic pigments produced by plants that are widely used in the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. The technology allows to obtain in a short time potato cell lines in which the production of highly acetylated and highly complex anthocyanins is increased in addition to other antioxidant polyphenolic compounds. The obtained cellular lines have a high production efficiency, comparable to the extraction of berries, but with the advantage of having an on-demand production which is not limited to seasonality.

In the last years, hop culture has spread throughout Italy, and the vegetative biomass disposal, after harvesting of cones, used for beer production, became a serious problem for hop growers. Hop plant contains in all parts, cones, shoots, leaves and roots, bioactive compounds, with proven and important antiviral, antibacterial and antioxidant properties.

Our idea come from the improving of the traceability technique in agro-food fisheries industries through the application of omics technologies in microbiota studies.  These latter would be capable of exploiting the huge pool of biological molecules contained in fishery resources (e.g. nucleic acids, proteins, metabolites) and use them as a powerful tools for the identification and reconstruction of fishery history, from the sea to the table.

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.

WembraneX is an Italian start-up born with the ambition to make a significant contribution to UN Sustainable Goal 6 - Ensure Access to Clean Water and Sanitation for all by 2030.

The proposal concerns the development of the G.A.T.CD4 (Gliadin-activated CD4+ T cells) method which allows, in peripheral blood, the identification of CD4+ T lymphocytes reactive to toxic peptides of gliadin, the main gluten protein of cereals.

We have identified compounds that show a neuroprotective action in vivo, in models of neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. SMA, Parkinson, Alzheimer, Huntington) in the model organism C. elegans. These compounds consist of: mixtures of 22 natural extracts, 15 natural molecules and 11 synthetic molecules.

The prototype uses soil moisture sensors which, through a measurement of dielectric permittivity, estimate the soil moisture based on which irrigation is started through relay-controlled solenoid valve. The system was developed using Open Source technologies. Specifically, for the hardware components, a small sized board computer Raspberry PI 3B + was used together with a 4G LTE Wi-Fi router and a Modbus rs485 / USB converter.

SITODIET is an innovative software that supports a translational approach to health’s state. It integrates various sources of physiological, behavioral, and psychological data to reduce the risks associated with the onset of lifestyle-related diseases (primary prevention), to support health professionals in early diagnosis (secondary prevention) or to manage the personalized therapy’s patient (tertiary prevention). SITODIETcollects data automatically, through actigraphy tools, as wristband or smartwatch, or manually

Environmental contamination is a prominent topic. Where the exposure to contaminants such as heavy metals (HMs) or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is greater, the incidence of chronic degenerative diseases, such as oncologic, is increased. Scientific evidence reports that some phytochemicals are able to interact with HMs and PAHs by interfering with their cellular metabolism, inhibiting their cytotoxic mechanisms or helping to reduce tissue concentrations.

Our team can develop low-cost ultra-flexible sensors integrated on plastic substrate for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and gas detection. These devices combine scalable fabrication technologies, implementing active materials such as nanostructured metal oxides or stack of nanostructures decorated with metal nanoparticles, thus enabling a high sensitivity (in the range of hundreds of ppb). These devices can be applied to numerous industrial and commercial sectors and they can be embedded in systems that are more sophisticated.

This form describes a programmable, autonomous and stand-alone imaging system for the acquisition and processing of images containing subjects whose size is larger than 1cm (e.g. gelatinous zooplankton, fishes, litter, manufacts), form the seafloor or along the water column, in shallow or deep waters. It is capable to recognize and classify the image content through pattern recognition algorithms that combine computer vision and artificial intelligence methodologies.

Our treatment demonstrated the ability to kill metastatic human melanoma cells, for which there are very few effective therapeutic approaches. Use of a specific Essential Oil (EO) to inhibit the replication of human metastatic melanoma cells. This EO can be used both for direct application to the skin, and administered by mouth to reach both primary and metastatic melanomas.

Safe, efficient and specific nano-delivery systems are increasingly needed for precision and regenerative medicine and targeted therapies (e.g. anticancer and antimicrobial therapies), as well as for  the cosmetic and nutraceutical sectors’ applications. Despite the appreciable success of synthetic nanovectors, like for example liposomes, their clinical and market application is hampered by some limitations: • large scale production, • low cost production • intrinsic toxicity • limited cellular uptake • limited consumer acceptance.