Project partners
Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale – Amedeo Avogadro
lead: Prof Annalisa Chiocchetti
UPO
UPO is a public Italian University established in 1998. It has 7 Departments and one School of Medicine, 12.000 students approximately, 400 teachers/researchers, 350 members of technical and administrative staff, about 130 PhD students and 100 post-doc positions.
The University offers a full range of academic disciplines (Economics, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Law and Political Science, Social Science, Medicine and Surgery, Natural Sciences, Humanities) to embrace a large number of activities: basic and representative courses, laboratories, apprenticeships, training periods and international exchanges.
UPO will be the coordinator of this project. Major contributions will be in the development of Syn-U where UPO will take care to receive biopsies from QMUL, perform cell biobanking, and make them available to all the consortium and to engineer and characterize the synovia. Moreover, UPO will be involved in biological validation of Syn-U. Major contribution will also be provided in dissemination and exploitation efforts of the project outcomes.
Instituto Nacional de Engenharia Biomédica
LEAD: prof Meriem Lamghari
INEB
INEB is a private non-profit association with the statute of public interest founded in 1989. The Mission of INEB is to generate knowledge, by promoting research, advanced training and technology transfer in biomedical engineering. INEB is an internationally recognised interdisciplinary research institution, where integrative engineering solutions are applied to improve human health, involving specialists in biomaterials, tissue regeneration, nanomedicine, bioimaging, medical signals, geoepidemiology, biology and medicine. In the past decade, INEB’s researchers generated 12 patents, 40 prototypes, 6 products and 3 spin-offs, along with hundreds of scientific publications (over 300 in the past 5 years).
INEB is the responsible for the generation of the vascular unit and validation of its functionality. In addition, INEB contributes also to the activities of:
1) Management of the SoC development during the project
2) Assembly of the SoC where the Vas-Unite is integrated
3) Dissemination and communication activities
4) Exploitation of the project outcomes.
National Research Council, Institute of Nanotechnology
lead: dr Alessandro Polini
CNR NANOTEC
The Italian National Research Council (CNR) is the largest public Italian research body with more than 8000 employees among which more than 4000 researchers active in over 100 Institutes, working in the main fields of scientific research. Its duty is to carry out, promote, spread, transfer and improve research activities in the main sectors of knowledge and their applications for the scientific, technological, economic and social development of the Country. The Institute of Nanotechnology is a multidisciplinary research center with labs and facilities located in Lecce, Bari, Roma and Rende (CS) and is part of the Department of Physics of CNR. The main research infrastructure (Lecce) features more than 12000 m2 of labs and clean rooms and over 200 researchers coming from physics, chemistry, biology, medicine and engineering.
CNR will focus on the synovial unit development and Exploitation strategies. CNR will be responsible for the design and microfabrication of all the OoC platforms throughout the project. Moreover, CNR will take part of the development of microsensing bioinks for monitoring the cell microenvironment (pH and oxygen) and culturing cells in OoCs in a 3D fashion.
Queen Mary University of London
LEAD: dr Costantino Pitzalis
QMUL
QMUL is one of the UK’s leading research-focused higher education institutions. We have over 25,000 students, close to 4,500 members of staff and an annual turnover of £462m. Queen Mary University of London teach and research across a wide range of subjects in the humanities, social sciences, law, medicine and dentistry, and science and engineering. Queen Mary has made a strategic commitment to the highest quality of research and invests in this principle by systematically recruiting the best academics in their disciplines from around the world.
QMUL is responsible of recruitment of a selected cohort of emblematic RA patients for clinical data and biopsies collection; testing disease and drug relevance of the SoC; testing biomarker/target discovery appropriateness and testing automation and parallelization of SoCs.
Association for research that cures
lead: Dr Giuseppe Cappellano
ARCA
The “Association for research that cures” (Associazione per la ricerca che cura)-ARCA, is a non -profit organization founded in 2018 by a group of researchers at Universita’ del Piemonte Orientale (UPO) in Novara. From the outset, ARCA has been committed to fostering autoimmune disease research in Piedmont; ARCA’s mission is to promote translational research activities on autoimmune diseases within Interdisciplinary Research Center of Autoimmune Diseases (IRCAD) and Center for translational research on autoimmune and allergic disease (CAAD), at UPO. ARCA aimed at informing the public and raise awareness of progress in autoimmune research, through the organization of seminar, conferences, dissemination of periodic publications via the website and social network. Funds raised by ARCA want to support research on autoimmune diseases by training of young scientists and giving its contribution to valid scientific projects.
ARCA will be involved in dissemination and communication activities. ARCA will promote FLAMIN-GO project and presents the ongoing results to experts as well as to general public. ARCA will organize events to promote FLAMIN-GO outcomes communication to general public
Rigas Tehniska universitate
LEAD: prof Janis Locs
RTU
RTU is one of the oldest institutions of higher technical education in Eastern Europe. RTU gathers more than 16000 students, staff of 678 people for research and 558 for teaching, currently is the top 1 University in Latvia in terms of scientific potential and it is ranked among the top 651–700 Universities worldwide. Riga Technical University positions itself as a cornerstone of the development of Latvia, which ensures education of specialists necessary for Latvian national economy and development of new products and services, serving as a basis for sustainable growth of Latvia as well as serving the needs of rapidly growing industry of the Baltic region.
RTU will focus on bioink development for bioprinting of osteochondral unit as well as involved in the uCT analysis of SoC units. RTU will participate in the development of the bioink for bone part of OC-U by synthesis of calcium phosphate nanoparticles and preparation of bioink. RTU will also contribute to dissemination and communication and exploitation.
EnginSoft Turkey Muhendislik Yazilim Ticaret Limited Şirketi
lead: dr Nasser Ghassembaglou
EnginSoft Turkey
EnginSoft Turkey is part of the wider EnginSoft group, the multinational company active in the field of Simulation-Based Engineering and Sciences and Applied Mathematics for Industry. Founded in 1984, EnginSoft has become over the years the partner of choice to support companies in product and process innovation, thanks to the extensive skills of highly qualified staff. EnginSoft provides a wide range of services including consulting, simulation and DSS software development, advanced training and research.
Based on its long expertise on numerical analyses EnginSoft proposes to develop computational fluid dynamics models based on finite volume solutions in order to get faster, cheaper and efficiently sophisticated microfluidic architecture with optimized design. Reducing the number of design iterations is another goal of this CFD models which will decrease the time of design and test cost profoundly. 3D computational fluid dynamics will be exploited to ensure flow uniformity at different sections of designed OoC as well as its distribution in in various areas of the platform. Considering variable parameters, an optimization will be possible on the design or flow distribution.
EnginSoft will work on fluid dynamics/mechanics simulations in order to ensure the flow uniformity in different areas of the system and sub-systems. Tracking the particles and ingredients inside the flow will be exploited to research the ingredients concentration in the whole system. Also, using the permeability of materials these ingredients permeation in different areas of the units will be inspected and taken into hand for further research.
Fluidigm France Sarl
LEAD: Paolo Santino
FLUIDIGM
FLUIDIGM France SARL is a French company based in Les Ulis and it is part of the Fluidigm Corp group. Fluidigm Corp is a public company traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol FLDM. FLUIDIGM France SARL is also the European headquarter of the company with other offices in the Netherlands, Germany and UK.
The company develops and manufactures innovative technologies and life science tools. We provide service and sell to leading academic institutions, clinical research laboratories, and pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and agricultural biotechnology companies worldwide. Our systems are based on proprietary microfluidics and multiparameter mass cytometry technology and are designed to significantly simplify experimental workflow, increase throughput, and reduce costs while providing excellent data quality.
FLUIDIGM role is to develop new protocols that will enable researchers to visualize multiple cellular phenotypes and their functionalities with sub-cellular spatial resolution, thus allowing for the first time an in-depth study of how the relationships and distribution of cells within this tissue type can affect disease outcome and severity.
AO-Forschungsinstitut Davos
lead: PROF Mauro Alini
ARI
The AO Forschungsinstitut Davos, hereinafter AO Research Institute Davos (ARI) is part of the AO Foundation, which is the biggest trauma and orthopaedic network worldwide and one of the biggest medical networks in the global scale. ARI is the research arm of AO Foundation; its mission is promoting excellence in patient care and outcomes in trauma and musculoskeletal disorders. ARI’s scientific activities are multidisciplinary and with a very strong approach to basic and translational research, focused towards clinical applications and realized through a cooperation network with many industrial partners.
ARI is focusing on osteochondral unit bioprinting as well as supporting the other partners on bioprinting. ARI will participate at the development of the polymers for seeding the OC-U cells and the biological validation of the OC-unit. ARI also contribute to ethics, dissemination and communication and exploitation.
Trustech s.r.l.
LEAD: Laura Boschis
TRUSTECH
Trustech s.r.l. is an Italian private technology transfer and R&D organization specialized on Micro and Nanotechnology. Trustech is able to develop, prototype and produce MEMS and Nano devices for customer needs always taking into account business needs. With the constant growth of our network of individual researchers as well as public and private research institutions and laboratories we try to reduce, where possible, time-to-market of innovation. Trustech is an expert and knowledgeable actor in support of those companies that aim at evaluating and exploiting the high potential returns of technology offered by applied scientific research, and specifically by micro and nanotechnologies.
Trustech is focusing on Lab on Chip project, in which it will put at disposition its immunoenzymatic analytical platform and its microplate for enhanced fluorescence analysis. Besides Trustech is involved in the integration of its analytical methods with the organ on chip.
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e.V.
lead: Dr Salvatore Girardo
MPG
The Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) was founded in 2009 and is one of 86 institutes that make up the Max Planck Society, whose mission is to conduct basic research in the service of the general public in the natural sciences, life sciences, social sciences and the humanities. Research at MPL covers a wide range of topics, including nonlinear optics, quantum optics, nanophotonics, photonic crystal fibres, optomechanics, quantum technologies, biophysics, and — in collaboration with the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin – links between physics and medicine.
MPLis focusing on the development of standardized fluorescent microgel beads made of polyacrylamide (PAAm) as:
1) cell-scale mechano-sensors to analyse forces in cellular microenvironment
2) simplified cell models to evaluate the impact of cell physical properties during extravasation
Science on the Street, Institute for the Promotion of Science
LEAD: prof saša novak krmpotič
SoS
Science on the Street (ZnC/SoS) is a non-profit institute for the promotion of science, established by the Slovenian Academic Society for Engineering and Technology (SATENA) and the project team members, mostly researchers. It is based upon the project “Science on The Street, Knowledge on The Go” initiated in 2013 as a voluntary action (later supported by the Slovenian Research Agency and donations) aiming at increase of the awareness of the taxpayers on the scientific investigations and achievements in Slovenia. The ZnC/SoS Institute includes ten members, which work contractually part time or voluntarily.
ZnC (SoS) will be responsible for the Communication and Dissemination. General communication plan will be prepared, which will consider all the relevant target groups from experts, students, patients and media to general public.
RegenHU Ltd
lead: Dr Salvatore Girardo
RHU
REGENHU is a research driven, Swiss MedTech bioprinter pioneer committed to assisting the research and scientific communities by creating and developing state-of-the art bioprinting technologies to revolutionize medicine. Founded in 2007, the dynamic and rapidly expanding company is based in Villaz-St-Pierre, Switzerland, with offices in the United States, and distributors in Asia and Oceania.
The company’s participation in the consortium will be three-fold: the company will be providing a customized 3D bioprinter and associated design software capable of printing cell layers into the organ chips in a highly reproducible and accurate manner with high cell viability, training in use of bioprinter and software, and technical support to the consortium members in resolving issues with printability of biomaterials.
EU CORE Consulting
LEAD: Irene Liverani
EUCORE
EU CORE Consulting (EUropean COoperation in Research and Education) is a private company providing services of project design, project management, accounting, evaluation and partnership for higher education institutions, research institutes, Large and Small and Medium Enterprises for the participation in national, international and EU funded research and cooperation projects.
EU CORE Consulting is very well integrated within the Italian university and research network, working closely with a broad number of scientific university departments and international relations offices, as well as research-performing bodies across the country in the preparation and implementation of international cooperation and research projects.
