Technologies

Organotypic models of ovarian cancer are 3D models containing defined extracellular matrices, such as collagen and fibronectin, ovarian cancer cells with specific genetic/molecular characteristics, and one or more cancer-associated stromal cell types (fibroblasts, mesothelial cells, endothelial cells) to mimic specific metastatic niches of ovarian cancer (omentum, peritoneum, interstitial stroma) and the complex interactions within tumor tissues.

Time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) is regarded as the “gold-standard” method for fluorescence lifetime measurements. However, TCSPC requires using highly sensitive detectors, not suitable for measurements under bright light conditions, thereby making the use impractical in clinical settings. The invention described here solves this problem by synchronizing the fluorescence detection with an external light source.

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.

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.

We propose a compact innovative spectroscopy system operating in the UV range. In the actual version, designed for gas, it exhibits: an aluminium tubular optical chamber (length can be adjusted; currently is 20 cm); a cheap commercial UV LED; a SiC visible blind UV detector designed and manufactured at the CNR-IMM facilities. The team developed also the electronic chain for wireless remote real time read out; while able to deal with pA current levels, it uses very cheap components and construction technology.

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.

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 platform allows the deployment of a sensor network with peripheral nodes spread on the crop fields or on the environment for the monitoring of crop parameters/environmental parameters. The network architecture integrated LoRa peripheral nodes for short-medium range communication and star-center NB-IoT based for long range communication. It includes a web server and MySQL database for data storage and visualization. The network architecture is scalable to adapt to the area to monitor.

Recently, it has been demonstrated that Raman spectroscopy can play a fundamental role in assisting the work of the anatomopathologist by allowing classification of oncological samples with practically 100% accuracy in oncological diagnosis.

Wine is one of the economically most important beverages and may be subject to fraud and mislabelling, although that there are specific and strict rules protecting its authenticity in Europe. Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs), recently identified and characterized thanks to advances in genomics, are considered the newest type of molecular marker for grapevine identification.

Electrochromism is an optoelectronic characteristic of particular interest because it can be exploited in the creation of technologies such as smart windows (Smart Windows) to promote energy efficiency, automotive, sensor or visualization devices. Electrochromic materials change their optoelectronic characteristics, showing different colors depending on the applied electric field.