Press

An automated, zero-emissions chemical reactor that will enable digitalisation of chemical processes, transforming them into files. This is the innovative technology from Katakem, a startup from Catanzaro, in Southern Italy, which won first place in Startup Marathon 2023. The contest run by Area Science Park, UniCredit and Fondazione Comunica ended on Tuesday 14 November, with an event hosted at the UniCredit offices in Verona. Ten finalists were selected by a panel of judges made up of entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts, from an initial pool of 61 innovative companies who entered the contest from 34 different incubators, accelerators and university research centres. Working in the sectors of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, agritech, robotics and life sciences, the ten startups competed for access to the UniCredit Start Lab acceleration programme. The company that came out victorious was Katakem – put forward by the Calabrian innovation hub Entopan – which has developed technology capable of accelerating the development of new molecules and their time-to-market. The new technology is called OnePot, an automated, zero-emissions chemical reactor that digitalises a chemical process, transforming it into a file that can be sent anywhere in the world and instantaneously replicated. Also on the podium were Enphos from Verona, put forward by the INSTM consortium, and Rozes, a spin-off from the University of Padua. Enphos develops solutions for producing green and white hydrogen, which include high-efficiency electrolyzers to generate green hydrogen and artificial-photosynthesis materials and systems to produce white hydrogen and e-fuels. It is working on developing a system for long-term energy storage. Rozes is an innovative startup specialising in artificial intelligence that helps economic operators to anticipate the risk of entering business relationships with potentially dangerous and financially unstable companies. It has developed an index for measuring a company’s risk level by analysing accounting anomalies deriving from fraud, money laundering, false invoicing and fraudulent bankruptcy. The final of the 2023 edition was the first live event since the contest was first launched in 2020. For all the startups that reached the final stage, the event was an opportunity to meet and network with entrepreneurs and investors, participating as the audience for pitch sessions and then in one-to-one sessions with the finalist companies. The final also saw the participation of the best female-led startup of Startup Marathon 2023, already recognised during the Digital Day on 27 October – the online event during which the finalists were selected from the 35 shortlisted companies. This was Bioverse, which produces electromedical equipment designed for use in emergency settings and low-resource contexts. The company has developed Corax, a low-cost, transportable device capable of reproducing the characteristics of an intensive-care room for burns patients, enabling safe transport to hospital structures. Thanks to this success, the startup joined the shortlist for the international acceleration programme Prospera Women. Bioverse was nominated for the initiative, in its role as business accelerator, by Almacube, the innovation hub of Confindustria Emilia Area Centro and the University of Bologna. The event concluded with a presentation from the team Enacuts Polimi of the Politecnico di Milano University, winner of the Enacuts national competition. “We can confirm that the fourth edition of Startup Marathon has been a great success”, declared Roberto Pillon, Head of the Business Generation Unit at Area Science Park. “Not only from a quantitative perspective, with this edition having the highest ever number of participants, but above all in qualitative terms. The startups that took part are in fact a representative sample of the innovation potential of our country – potential that Startup Marathon is working to optimise”. “The final confirmed the value of the startups selected by a panel of judges that are highly competent in the area of innovation”, commented Renzo Chervatin, Head of Regional Development at UniCredit – North-East. “Here at UniCredit, we are very satisfied with the result of this fourth edition of Startup Marathon, which has held an in-person event for the first time at our offices in Verona, for the final. The project demonstrates how open innovation can be the key to generating value for the entire economic and social system: for businesses with clear goals for growth and positioning in the market, for startups on their own path to growth, and for the innovation ecosystem supporting these startups. At UniCredit, we want to play an active role in this process and we believe that participation as a partner of Startup Marathon clearly demonstrates this. Having established an ecosystem of such great value is very exciting.” “There are many startups competing, many businesses and investors participating and many different interests: a challenging but winning formula for those wishing to invest in innovation,” said Gianni Potti, Chair of Fondazione Comunica and founder of DIGITALmeet. “This was an unmissable occasion that has made Startup Marathon one of the leading Italian events in the sector, perfectly integrated with the places we find innovation: incubators, science and technology parks and universities, to promote and further the best Italian entrepreneurial ideas, and to strengthen and support many projects that would otherwise risk being lost without the support of solid innovation organisations.” Launched in 2020, over the years Startup Marathon has selected and recognised innovative companies operating in sectors such as artificial intelligence, diagnostics, IoT and sustainability. Winners of past editions include CAEmate, an enterprise that developed software for the predictive maintenance of infrastructure; Aisent, which provides services based on AI, machine learning and computer vision; and M2Test, a spin-off from the University of Trieste with an innovative method for diagnosing osteoporosis. Partners In addition to the three promoters, Startup Marathon is supported by a range of partners. These are: Unicorn Trainers Club, Elis Innovation Hub, Italian Angels for Growth, Italian Business Angel Network, Giordano Controls, Fastweb, Venture Factory, Start Tech Ventures, Liftt, Carel, Eatable Adventures, Chiesi, Manni Group, Maxfone, Dba Group, Angel for Women, Eurotherm and HiRef. The startups competing The ten startups in the final were: Agreen Biosolutions, Audio Innova, Biomeye, Cyber Evolution, Cyberneid, Enphos, Katakem, Lightscience, Robotizr and Rozes. Startup Marathon is a contest for innovative enterprises open to startups, innovative SMEs and university spin-offs put forward by incubators and business accelerators. Run by Area Science Park, UniCredit and Fondazione Comunica, since 2020, it has selected the most important innovative companies in Italy and accelerated their go-to-market strategy.

Generative AI startup Aindo, which has developed and patented synthetic data generation technology, announces a €6 million Series A round led by United Ventures, with a participation from existing investor Vertis SGR through the fund Vertis Venture 3 Technology Transfer. This new funding will allow Aindo to grow the team by 10 more employees, and continue developing solutions that facilitate the use of artificial intelligence in strategic sectors such as healthcare, finance, and public administration. Synthetic data is data that is created artificially as opposed to generated by real-world events. It’s manufactured algorithmically and is used as a substitute for testing purposes and to train machine learning (ML) models. Aindo’s team aims not only to consolidate its position as a leader in synthetic data but also to revolutionize the concept of data mobility, understood as the secure exchange of information, with particular attention to privacy protection. United Ventures, a venture capital company focused on investments in high-tech companies, leads the investment round, a testimony to the growing role of synthetic data in promoting secure information exchange. Vertis, which invests in innovative Made in Italy projects, is betting on the strategic dimension of the technology. According to Gartner, synthetic data is among the emerging trends in AI. By 2024, 60% of the data used in AI projects will be synthetically generated compared to only 1% in 2021. A study by Grand View Research forecasts that the global synthetic data market will be valued at €1.79 billion by 2030. The technology is in high demand from sectors ranging from healthcare and finance, to banking, and insurance. Notably, in the healthcare sector, Aindo’s synthetic data generation technology is already widely applied, from improving predictive analysis of pharmacological therapies in rare diseases to optimizing patient care in a hospital setting, to monitoring remote healthcare by anticipating potential risk situations. “We’re thrilled to announce this new funding round, which will fuel our growth at a crucial phase of the company’s development.” says Daniele Panfilo, co-founder and CEO of Aindo. “When we launched Aindo, Generative AI was barely known outside academic environments. In record time, it’s grown into the next billion dollar category in tech, thanks to its mind blowing capabilities that have captivated the world’s imagination. Our goal is to make data-driven innovation increasingly secure and ethically responsible for entire industries. Most organizations possess valuable structured information stored within their databases that cannot be used due to privacy protection. Creating synthetic data with generative AI solves that: the data Aindo regenerates behaves similarly to real data while fully protecting individuals’ privacy.” Giulia Giovannini, partner at United Ventures, comments, ” The AI revolution still faces many obstacles, including data inaccessibility, long processing times, privacy concerns, and ethical issues related to data collection. Synthetic data is an answer to these problems, offering companies a tool of great importance to fully exploit the potential of artificial intelligence while ensuring the necessary privacy in data anagement. We believe that Daniele and his team have the right ambition to scale the platform internationally in the field of synthetic data, and we are excited to contribute to this round, as our very first investment from UV3, United Ventures recently launched fund.” Roberto Della Marina, operating partner of Vertis SGR and managing partner of Venture Factory, adds, “Synthetic data tech is undeniably one of the most promising emerging trends in AI. It’s what we call a horizontal innovation. In the coming years, the demand for synthetic data will be ubiquitous for all sectors relying heavily on data, particularly in healthcare, finance, and insurance. Aindo’s technology has the potential to impact millions of people’s lives.” Aindo was born from the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste. Aindo’s Synthetic Data Aindo’s synthetic data is not collected empirically but generated artificially through machine learning models. These models can create artificial data that faithfully reproduces the characteristics and behaviors of real data. The synthetic data generated by Aindo thus maintains the statistical utility of the original data. Being artificial, they are devoid of sensitive information and can be safely exchanged and analyzed. Applications of Synthetic Data Synthetic data enables the application of Artificial Intelligence in high-impact social and business areas, such as healthcare research or developing technologies for financial markets. Healthcare Sector – Synthetic data finds application in training artificial intelligence models necessary for developing prognostic and predictive tools in the healthcare field, aimed at improving diagnostics and treatment of numerous diseases. Patient health data is highly confidential and generally cannot be shared; however, their analysis can lead to new diagnostic and pharmacological knowledge for treating specific pathologies or identifying risk factors. Aindo’s synthetic data aligns with GDPR, allowing the use, mobility, and exchange of synthetic health data. Financial Sector – Synthetic data is critical in developing personalized solutions and services in the financial world. For example, a bank could use synthetic data to build accurate risk prediction models to identify patterns and behaviors typical of companies likely to encounter financial difficulties. Additionally, synthetic data can be successfully employed to improve anti-fraud systems through data augmentation possibilities. Infrastructure and Energy – In the infrastructure and energy sectors, synthetic data is instrumental in data sharing between the public and private sectors. This facilitates the combination of supply and demand in infrastructure and network management optimization. Think of smart cities, smart buildings, and physical infrastructure monitoring such as bridges, viaducts, and road networks to assess wear and tear, traffic management, and structural monitoring. Properly calibrated synthetic data would enable the evaluation of multi-risk scenarios, such as static, seismic, and hydrogeological risks, by simulating different damage or optimal management scenarios.

The European project POSIDON PCP (POlluted SIte DecontaminatiON Pre-Commercial Procurement) has led to development and testing of two new technologies for soil decontamination in polluted disused industrial areas. The results of experiments in the final phase of the competitive procedure, aimed at the procurement of research and development services, were presented during the final project event on 9 October in Bilbao, Spain. POSIDON, financed by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme and coordinated by Area Science Park, has the goal of driving development of new solutions currently unavailable on the market, from the public demand side. The project gathers five European procurers, owners and/or managers of polluted sites, with the common need to identify new soil-treatment technology (potentially also for groundwater treatment), preferably in situ, capable of decontaminating heterogeneous anthropic soils on brownfields with a mixture of industrial waste (such as soils polluted by petroleum hydrocarbons and heavy metals) and soils consisting of clays and sands, highly polluted by petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs and PAHs) and heavy metals (arsenic and lead). During the project, various suppliers (mixed research/enterprise consortiums) were invited to develop innovative solutions, in the context of a competition procedure. This included all steps from concept and design of new solutions through to prototyping, laboratory validation and original development of two prototypes for parallel testing in the field on two different sites in Trieste, Italy and Bilbao, Spain. The two technologies that reached the field experiment and comparison phase were those of the consortiums headed by companies TESECO BONIFICHE and HPC Italia. TESECO has developed the technology Soil-Omic® which uses integrated biological and chemical-physical processes aimed to decontaminate soils and groundwater from organic and inorganic pollutants, with biological formulations based on the integration of metagenomics and environmental engineering. The solution uses BIOflushing®, an in-situ decontamination technology that uses specialised hydraulic systems for bio-stimulation, bio-amplification and chemical washing of saturated and unsaturated soils. The results have confirmed the efficacy of the process and the system dedicated to breaking down oil and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, as well as removing heavy metals from saturated and unsaturated soils. Specifically, in Bilbao, in around five months of operation of the system, a significant reduction in average inorganic contamination of unsaturated soil* was recorded, as well as in organic contamination**. Soil-Omic® is under commercialisation and will go to market at the end of 2023. Meanwhile, HPC ITALIA in cooperation with the Politecnico di Milano University, has developed the “Erase” (ElectRode-Aided Soil rEmediation) solution, a flexible, modular, in-situ platform that involves positioning of electrodes to reduce contamination both with organic and inorganic pollutants, through the transport inducted by the electrical field of the soil, in addition to chemical and biological treatment actions through injection of chemical products and nutrients. The modular nature of the technology enables use on contaminated water sources of various sizes and depths. The solution is still in the development phase, but Phase 3 testing has already provided evidence of an increase in the mobility of metals, with a reduction in the concentration of some of these in the soil, while monitoring data has also confirmed a decrease in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and hydrocarbons.   *Reduction in average inorganic contamination of unsaturated soil: Arsenic -97%, Cadmium -82%, Chromium -31%, Nickel -56%, Lead -95%, Copper -96% and Zinc -94%. **Reduction in organic contamination: Hydrocarbons (TPH) -85%, Dibenzo(a.h)anthracene -97%, Benzo(a)pyrene -97%, Indeno(1.2. 3-cd)pyrene -97%, Pyrene -97%, Benzo(a)anthracene -99%, Chrysene -97%, Benzo(b)fluoranthene -99%, Benzo(k)fluoranthene -96% and Sum PAH (EPA 16) -97%.   The POSIDON PCP project involves Area Science Park (coordinator and technical project partner), the group of five managers of polluted sites to be decontaminated: Port Network Authority of the Eastern Adriatic (Lead procurer of the joint pre-commercial contract) (IT), Bilbao City Council (ES) SpaQue (BE), CEA – Vitoria Gasteiz City Council (ES) and Baja do Tejo (PT), joined by the technical partners: Sara Bedin, expert in innovation contracts and pre-commercial procurement (IT); TECNALIA, Basque research centre (ES); IHOBE, Basque environment agency (ES) and MAS communications manager (ES). POSIDON has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, in the context of Grant Agreement No. 776838. The information contained in this press release reflects the authors’ views. The European Research Executive Agency (REA) is not responsible for any use made of the information contained herein.

Three days of exchange of good practices and networking as part of the “EU for Economic Growth” (EU4EG) project: this is the objective of the works taking place from 16 to 18 October at Area Science Park’s Congress Center, where business support organizations, institutional stakeholders and businesses talk about economic development opportunities in the Republic of North Macedonia. Opening the proceedings this morning were Caterina Petrillo, President of Area Science Park, Roberto Antonione, Secretary General of the Central European Initiative (CEI), and Vesel Memedi, Ambassador to Italy of the Republic of North Macedonia. EU4EG, which started in 2021 and has a duration of 48 months, aims to strengthen the economic system of North Macedonia in the context of the country’s accession to the EU. The project aims to achieve greater competitiveness of the production system combined with sustainability and decarbonization, placing a focus on the primary role of industrial ecosystems and innovation, and implementing initiatives oriented towards the digital and green transition, aiming for higher environmental and social standards. Partners of the project, with an overall funding of approximately €9.5 million, are the German Federal International Cooperation Agency (GIZ) (coordinator), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate (BMWK), the Initiative Central Europe (CEI) and Area Science Park. “Area Science Park’s contribution to the project is based on the organization’s consolidated skills in promoting and supporting innovation and its ability to dialogue with businesses and the world of research – explains President Caterina Petrillo -. To this, Area combines the added value of knowing how to produce cutting-edge research in the sectors currently affecting the digital and green transition. This project is very important for us and represents an element of a broader strategy of relations with the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe that the organization intends to strengthen and relaunch with a view to supporting growth based on research and innovation”. EU4EG is based on three interconnected components. The first involves the mapping of entrepreneurial ecosystems and regional value chains, the identification of the availability of business support services (BSS) in the territories and the creation of a capacity building program aimed at business support organizations (BSOs) to enable them to provide new services to Macedonian SMEs and start-ups. The second component involves the launch of four business acceleration programs to support the growth of selected groups of start-ups. The third component includes a grant scheme for innovation and renewal projects, carried out jointly by SMEs and BSOs on the themes of the Green Deal and the New EU Industrial Strategy. To date, the main results achieved by the project are a capacity building program on 14 topics, 49 methodologies and tools for providing business support services (BSS), 271 hours of training, 170 representatives of business support organizations (BSOs) involved . Furthermore, thanks to EU4EG, 27 joint projects involving Macedonian SMEs and BSOs have been financed, whereby €4.5 million were disbursed by the project, with an additional €5 million co-financed by involved companies.

Trieste is gearing up to host the third edition of the Big Science Business Forum (BSBF) in 2024, an international business-oriented conference that brings together major European research infrastructures. The stages leading up to the forum, set to take place from October 1 to 4 of next year at the Trieste Convention Center located within the Old Port of the regional capital, were unveiled today at Trieste Next, as part of the event “Non solo ricerca. Il valore delle infrastrutture scientifiche per l’economia e la società” (Not just research. The value of scientific infrastructures for economy and society), organized by Area Science Park in collaboration with SiS FVG. Trieste’s selection for BSBF 2024 is no accident: the city has one of the highest concentrations of researchers in Europe and is home to many national and international centers of scientific excellence. Among these is the Consortium for Central European Research Infrastructure (CERIC), an open access point to some of the most advanced scientific investigation structures from eight Central European countries (Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Hungary) in the fields of materials, biomaterials, and nanotechnology, with a special focus on energy and life sciences. “Unlike other external innovation support programs, BSBF is an initiative independently promoted by the scientific community to facilitate the meeting between research and international industry,” explains Paolo Acunzo of ENEA, Director of BSBF Trieste 2024 activities. “The fact that this important forum will be held in Italy for the first time is a clear acknowledgment of the leading role our national system has taken in building a European Big Science market. Until 2025, Trieste will be at the center of attention of the diverse world of Big Science, and as early next week, on September 26, representatives of all major international infrastructures will meet in Trieste to agree on the next joint activities in preparation for BSBF Trieste 2024 ” concludes Acunzo. Trieste’s candidacy, supported by Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia on the initiative of the regional councilor Alessia Rosolen and the Italian government, was also backed by the Central European Initiative, the first International Forum for Regional Cooperation based in Trieste. Co-organizers of the forum include a series of international research centers: CERN, ESA, ESO, ESRF, ESS, European XFEL, FAIR, ILL, F4E, SKAO. The local organizing committee consists of the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Municipality of Trieste, Area Science Park, Promo Turismo FVG, the University of Trieste, and the Chamber of Commerce Venezia Giulia. Additional partners are the Industrial Liaison Offices: ILO (Denmark), ILO (Spain), and ILO Network Italia, a network made up of representatives from CNR, ENEA, INAF, and INFN. BSBF aims to be the first “one-stop-shop” for European companies and other organizations interested in interacting with large European scientific organizations. The goal is to create a common market for big science in Europe that is stronger, more transparent, and efficient, without entry barriers for industrial suppliers looking to establish relationships with large research installations. The first edition of BSBF, hosted by the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education in Copenhagen, Denmark, was a huge success. Similar results were achieved by the second BSBF edition held in Granada, Spain: more than 1,000 delegates from over 500 companies and organizations from 30 countries attended. The exhibition area featured over 200 companies and organizations, and over 790 B2B and B2C meetings took place during the event. BSBF offered insights into procurement opportunities and contracts for companies worth nearly 10 billion euros in total per year.

The long-awaited start of the North Adriatic Hydrogen Valley (NAHV) is here at last. The first transnational initiative of this kind under the Horizon Europe program, supported by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, is being launched in Portorož-Portorose, Slovenia. More than 100 delegates representing 37 project partners from three countries, Croatia, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Autonomous Region in Italy, and Slovenia, will gather there for a project kick-off meeting. Beginning on 1st September 2023, the NAHV will run for 72 months. It includes 17 pilots to be developed in different locations in all three partner countries. The partnership, which has been awarded a grant of €25 million by Clean Hydrogen Partnership, and is led by HSE, Slovenia’s largest electricity producer and trader and the largest producer of electricity from renewable sources, includes 37 organizations: companies, universities, institutes and other public entities from the three participating countries, including Area Science Park. The project design covers the entire value chain of renewable hydrogen use, from production, through storage and distribution, to its end use in various sectors, notably industry and land and maritime transport, creating leverage to accelerate the transition to renewables on three target pillars: hard-to-abate industries, and the energy and transport sectors. These are the main reasons why the NAHV has received the Seal of Excellence, which is awarded under Horizon Europe to projects that have been highly rated. The key aim of the initiative is to create a market for green hydrogen on both the demand and supply sides, making it a competitive energy source for the future. Key industry players from all three countries will develop pilot projects to produce up to 5,000 tonnes of renewable hydrogen per year from renewable energy sources, destined for energy storage, distribution and use. It is expected that some 20% of the produced renewable hydrogen will be exchanged between the participating countries, thus creating a primary regional market for hydrogen. By introducing advanced hydrogen technologies and developing skills and infrastructure, the partnership also pursues other key objectives of the European Green Deal. In particular, the NAHV testbed projects address the decarbonization of important industrial sectors such as steel, cement and glass production, and provide sustainable land and maritime transport solutions linked to reducing the carbon footprint. It is expected that the implementation of the planned mature stage innovation activities will unleash further investments in renewable hydrogen-related technologies in an amount of more than €300 million, destined to increase the capacity of hydrogen production, storage, transmission and use. Additional investments are expected to be funded on top, both during the course of the project implementation and afterwards, from private and public sources in the form of follow-up investments in the successfully implemented pilots in 17 testbed locations across the three participating countries, as well as through new initiatives which will contribute to the evolution of a social and economic ecosystem based on renewable hydrogen. The foreseen development creates the need for new competencies and skills, which makes the universities and research institutions which are partners in the initiative important protagonists in designing and disseminating new educational programmes, as the NAHV is destined to become a vehicle for job creation.

ICGEB Group Leader, Mouse Molecular Genetics Lab, Dr. Andrés F. Muro and Research Associate, Dr. Giulia Bortolussi have taken part in the European research project CureCN, which aims to develop a curative gene therapy for the ultra-rare Crigler-Najjar syndrome (CN) – a life-threatening liver disease which affects one in a million individuals at birth. The project commenced in 2013 and is led by Généthon, France and sponsored by the European Commission programme H2020. The consortium includes 11 partners from six European countries and has involved the external collaboration of ICGEB which was pivotal in generating pre-clinical data using its Ugt1a KO mouse model, thus setting the basis for the subsequent clinical translation of the trial. The results of the trial were published on 17 August in a joint manuscript in the New England Journal of Medicine, co-authored by Dr. Bortolussi and Dr. Muro. These represent the first clinical demonstration of the efficacy of gene therapy in a metabolic disease of the liver, demonstrating the safety and tolerance for the treatment as well as its efficacy at the highest dose. The trial demonstrated restored long-term expression of the missing enzyme with a large reduction in plasma bilirubin levels in the three adult patients treated with the highest dose. The current part of the study, launched in January 2023, aims to confirm the observed effect in a larger number of patients including children aged 10 years and over, the age at which the liver matures. Should the results be conclusive, this would enable a product license application at the French and European authorities. Dr. Muro states: “We are very proud of our contribution to the trial. The obtained in-patient results represent a fundamental step forward towards the application of gene therapy non only for Crigler-Najjar patients, but also for other liver genetic diseases. This is the first report of a long-term correction of a disease caused by a non-secreted liver protein.”

Research published in the journal Nature Physics presents a new method for greater understanding of quantum materials. Employing an experimental technique using the synchrotron light source, an international team of researchers – including Italian organisations, the IOM Materials Foundry of the National Research Council of Trieste (CNR-IOM), University of Bologna, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and La Statale University of Milan – have succeeded in measuring the “winding” of electrons, a property that determines certain particular characteristics of materials, knowledge which will be essential for their possible use in future advanced applications. The study, conducted at Sincrotrone Elettra in Trieste, also involved academics from the University of Würzburg (Germany), the University of St. Andrews (UK), Boston College (US) and the University of Santa Barbara (US). “The quantum properties of materials determine the behaviour of electrons, including their ‘topological winding’, meaning the curvature of the space in which they move within matter,” explains Ivana Vobornik, a researcher at CNR-IOM in Trieste. “By studying this property, one can identify the quantum properties of a certain material, and this enables greater understanding for applications in various technological fields, from renewable energy to biomedicine, and from electronics to quantum computers.” Specifically, the team focused on a class of materials known as “kagome materials”, named for their close resemblance to woven bamboo threads in traditional Japanese baskets. “These materials are revolutionising quantum physics due to their magnetic, topological and superconducting properties. Understanding these properties is therefore key,” adds the researcher. “To measure the characteristic of electron winding, an experimental technique was employed that relies on a synchrotron light source. In this case, measurements were conducted at Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste. Synergy with theoretical analysis and the use of powerful supercomputers was also key: theoretical simulations made it possible to guide the experiments to the specific area of the material in which the properties being studied manifest”. Rome, 12 June 2023 Image caption: Three perspectives of the surface on which electrons move, the Fermi surface. Left, the experimental result; centre and right, theoretical modelling. The colours red and blue represent a measure of electron speed. Both theory and experiment reflect the symmetry of the crystal, present in the Japanese “kagome” weave used to make traditional baskets. Summary Who: IOM Materials Foundry of the National Research Council of Trieste (CNR-IOM), University of Bologna, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and La Statale University of Milan, University of Würzburg (Germany), University of St. Andrews (UK), Boston College (US) and the University of Santa Barbara (US). What: “Flat band separation and robust spin Berry curvature in bilayer kagome metals”, Nature Physics (2023), DOI 10.1038/s41567-023-02053-z., link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-023-02053-z For information: Flavia Mancini, CNR-IOM, email: mancini@iom.cnr.it, mob.: +39 328 1230247, Giancarlo Panaccione, CNR-IOM, panaccione@iom.cnr.it, mob.: +39 335 5368898, Ivana Vobornik, CNR-Iom: vobornik@iom.cnr.it, mob.: +39 339 3967854 (contact details for professional use not to be published).

“Area Science Park is a hub for global, and above all Italian, knowledge, intelligence and expertise. It represents a concentration of our ability to excel. This area is the nucleus of a growing and ever stronger scientific community. A community that shows us again and again how powerful academic cooperation can be both for Italy’s innovation and as a diplomatic tool with international partners.” These were the words of the Minister for Universities and Research Anna Maria Bernini, during her visit to Area Science Park today, where she was welcomed by the President of the research institute, Prof. Caterina Petrillo, and General Manager Anna Sirica. Others present included the Regional Councillor for Research, Alessia Rosolen; the Mayor of Trieste, Roberto Di Piazza; the Prefect, Pietro Signoriello; and representatives of the scientific and technological institutions of SiS FVG, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Science and Innovation System. The President, Prof. Petrillo illustrated the core activities, strategic priorities and future development prospects of the research body to Minister Bernini, focusing on the investments that Area Science Park is making in the field of research and technological infrastructure. “We are very pleased that the Minister of Universities and Research has accepted our invitation to visit the institution and meet representatives of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region’s Scientific and Innovation System,” commented President Caterina Petrillo after the meeting with the ministerial delegation. “Area Science Park is a national research institution under the aegis of the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research (MUR), with a unique profile and expertise developed over 45 years in the field of research and innovation serving the country. Today, thanks in part to funding from the MUR National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the institution is taking a further step forward, investing in new state-of-the-art equipment and attracting young talent. In fact, alongside two national partners, we are working on the finalisation of two research structures, one dedicated to the study of pathogens and another to the study of innovative materials.” Later, the Minister had the opportunity to visit some of the most important business and scientific entities at Area Science Park, starting with modefinance, a company with a technological and financial foundation, now part of the TeamSystem group. Modefinance is a native fintech company, founded in 2009 as a University of Trieste spin-off and incubated at Area Science Park, and develops artificial-intelligence and data-science solutions for credit risk assessment and management. Next was the ICGEB (International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology), an intergovernmental organisation with 45 cutting-edge laboratories across three continents. It forms an interactive network of 68 member states, with operations aligned with those of the United Nations System. It plays a key role in biotechnology by promoting research excellence, training and technology transfer to industry, making a tangible contribution to global sustainable development. At ICGEB, welcomed by centre Director-General Lawrence Banks, the Minister visited the Tumour Virology, Bacteriology, and Functional Cell Biology laboratories. In the afternoon, the ministerial delegation moved to the Basovizza campus, where Minister Bernini visited Area Science Park’s Laboratory of Genomics and Epigenomics (LAGE), a leading national centre in the field of genomics and epigenomics and a key element of the Life Sciences Platform, an open research structure providing expertise and services aimed at experimental testing, and applied and industrial research projects, and which will be further enhanced thanks to MUR National Recovery and Resilience Plan funds. The next stop was the R&D laboratories of Alifax, one of the most important Italian companies specialising in the development, production and distribution of clinical diagnostic tools for laboratory automation, with a strong focus on scientific research and technological innovation supported by a constant programme of investments. Before leaving Area Science Park, the Minister visited Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste,the third-generation Italian synchrotron radiation facility serving the national and international scientific and industrial community. Alongside Elettra, since 2010 there has been Free Electron Laser FERMI, one of the few laser facilities of this type operational in the world, capable of ultrashort, microscopic observations at the atomic and molecular level. The Minister’s busy day ended with a visit to the icebreaker ship “Laura Bassi” of the OGS – National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics.

PICOSATS today announced the signing of a contract with the space logistics transportation company D-Orbit for the In-Orbit Demonstration of the RADIOSAT Ka-band transponder and the BEAMSAT K/Ka band horn antenna aboard the ION Satellite Carrier. ION Satellite Carrier is a multipurpose vehicle capable of performing satellite transport, payload hosting and advanced edge computing services in orbit in a single mission. The mission is scheduled for October 2023 and the target orbit is SSO, at an altitude of 500 – 600 km. “This opportunity will enable PICOSATS to reach flight heritage and enter the SATCOM equipment market with flight proven products” said Arianna Cagliari, VP Business Development. Founded in 2014 as a spin-off of the University of Trieste, PICOSATS is a company committed to the research, development, and commercialization of cutting-edge telecommunications systems for the small satellite market and beyond. The increasing use of small satellites in low orbits for satellite communications and the spectrum congestion has demanded the development of high-frequency, miniaturized telecommunications systems, and PICOSATS has seized the opportunity to enter this rapidly expanding market. PICOSATS is currently testing in an operational environment two transponders designed for CubeSats and small satellites, one in K/Ka and one in Ku-band for applications in LEO and GEO. The development of these products makes use of the know-how acquired by the company through various opportunities provided by the European and Italian Space Agencies. Along with the transponders, PICOSATS has also developed K/Ka-band and Ku-band horn antennas, and a V-band double reflector antenna for small satellites.

The kick off meeting at the Area Science Park officially got the “Pathogen Readiness Platform for CERIC-ERIC Upgrade” PRP@CERIC underway, the national project funded by Italian Ministry of Universities and Research (Ministero dell’università e della ricerca — MUR) within the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza — PNRR) and coordinated by the research institute Area Science Park in partnership with the National Research Council (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche — CNR) (Institute of Materials [Istituto Officina dei Materiali] and Institute of Crystallography [Istituto di Cristallografia]), the University of Salerno, the University of Naples and the University of Salento. The project, which can count on funding of 41 million euro, aims to create a highly specialised research infrastructure, unique in Europe, which integrates instruments and expertise in biology, biochemistry, physics, bio-electronics, bio-informatics and data science to study pathogens of human, animal and plant origin and intervene quickly to prevent the spread of potential new outbreaks of diseases. A multidisciplinary approach is the key to achieving the fundamental and applied research objectives that the project aims to implement in compliance with the DNSH (Do No Significant Harm) principle, namely, not to cause significant harm to the environment. In line with practices already in place at the Area Science Park and Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste laboratories, both academic and industrial users will be provided open access to the new infrastructure for studies and analyses. PRP@CERIC provides for the construction of new laboratories, as well as the updating of existing instruments and services. In fact, the laboratories of Area Science Park, Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, CNR and ICGEB (institutes of scientific excellence collaborating to implement the project) will be potentiated. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to leverage solid scientific principles and interdisciplinary and international collaboration, which are all fundamental to successfully reducing the human, social and economic impact of potential future risks of epidemics. Research infrastructures can play a key role in understanding the fundamental aspects of pathogenicity and in the effective development of prevention and healthcare strategies. Cutting-edge instruments, methodologies and technologies on diverse and mutually integrated scales (from single molecules to whole organisms) have the potential to meet the sensitivity and selectivity requirements required by the study of complex biological systems, thus contributing to shedding new light on host-pathogen interaction mechanisms. “The PRP@CERIC project was developed based on the expertise in genomics and data science already present at the research institute, integrating these competencies with those of the Area Science Park system. I refer, for example, to the research excellence in the field of virology at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), as well as the experimental capabilities of the Electra synchrotron light source, a research centre of international importance”, commented the President of Area Science Park, Caterina Petrillo, during the project’s kick off meeting. “This consolidated scientific expertise is complemented by certain specialties at the universities of Naples, Salento and Salerno, partners with whom we have already developed projects of national importance. The integration of varied expertise and the networking of laboratories located in different geographical areas will create a unique infrastructure in Europe that will be at the service of the world of research and business, nationally and internationally”. The PRP@CERIC project, which will continue for 30 months, it also adheres to the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data guidelines, that is, the data produced will be processed in such a way as to be easily available, accessible, interoperable and reusable, in the spirit of open and collaborative science at an international level. Sustainability will also be extended to models of higher education, since the project involves the setting up of master’s course for graduates and training for the next generation of researchers. The “Pathogen Readiness Platform for CERIC-ERIC Upgrade” PRP@CERIC project is funded by the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) under Mission 4 “Education and Research”, Component 2 “From Research to Enterprise”, Investment Line 3.1 “Fund for the creation of an integrated system of research and innovation infrastructures”, funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU.

An international research team led by Milan’s Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies – part of the National Research Council (Cnr-lfn) – has used an innovative approach to investigate the chirality of molecules, an essential property to develop technologically innovative solutions in the fields of materials science, pharmaceutics, and catalysis processes. The study was conducted at the laboratories of the Elettra Synchrotron Research Centre in Trieste, home to the FERMI free-electron laser. This is a last generation instrument that has enabled chirality at the level of individual atoms to be “photographed” during an ultrafast process. The results of the study have been published in the scientific journal Physical Review X. “A chiral molecule is not superimposable on its mirror image: in other words, it is a molecule that does not have mirror symmetry, and that exists in two different forms, called enantiomers, which cannot be superimposed by rotation or translation”, explained Caterina Vozzi, director of Cnr-lfn. “Understanding this property is important to many aspects of chemistry, biology and physics: the chemical reactivity and biological and pharmacological activity of chiral molecules can vary significantly depending on the configuration of the enantiomers. In applications with these complex molecules, it is therefore important to understand how each atom contributes to total chirality, especially during chemical reactions”. In the study, the variation of the chiral properties of a molecule were analysed over time using the radiation produced by a free electron laser (FEL), a cutting-edge technology that produces extremely intense and short pulses of light, lasting a few femtoseconds (1 femtosecond corresponds to a millionth of a billionth of a second). “The FERMI free electron laser is the only one in the world capable of producing pulses of circularly polarized light capable of exploring these phenomena. This type of light is able to provide detailed information on the structure and dynamics of molecules, opening up new perspectives in basic and applied research ”, added Oksana Plekan, researcher at Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, co-author of the study. “In this study, we have shown how the chirality of a molecule changes during an ultrafast process when we observe it from the perspective of the atoms forming it. This ability to observe chirality from multiple points of view is similar to stereoscopic vision in humans, thanks to which we can perceive the depth and three-dimensionality of the world around us”, stated Davide Faccialà, researcher at Cnr-Ifn and first author of the study. “The technique we have demonstrated enables us to observe in real time how the chirality of a molecule changes at an unprecedented level of detail, opening up new avenues for understanding the chemical and physical properties of chiral molecules in chemical reactions”. The study demonstrated the importance of combining expertise in different scientific fields to achieve innovative results in research. ———– The Italian Institute for the Structure of Matter (Istituto di struttura della materia — Ism) of the National Research Council (Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche — Cnr), the French National Centre of Scientific Research (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) and the University of Bordeaux (France), the University of Nottingham (UK), the German Electron Synchrotron (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron) and the University of Hamburg (Germany), the Polytechnic University of Milan (Politecnico di Milano) (Italy), the University of Nova Gorica (Slovenia), the Sincrotrone Soleil (France) and the University of Tokyo (Japan) contributed to the research.