#EPICENTROMERE#Unlocking the secrets of cell behaviour Understanding how our cells behave strengthens our ability to tackle genetic diseases and cancer.
A major challenge however is the complexity of the molecular make-up of the cell, which is only just beginning to be understood fully.
which could help explain how non-genetic material is inherited. Non-genetic material is material that is not part of the chromosomes, the chains in the cell nucleus
which contain the genes. Genes are the sequence of nucleic acids which provide the assembly instructions for a living organism,
helping scientists to better understand how gene expression is controlled. Indeed, the ultimate goal, explains project coordinator Dr Lars Jansen,
and the functioning of a living organism), was the only carrier of genetic information. Everything else was merely a product of these genes."
'the part of the chromosome (a long structure of DNA found in the cell nucleus, containing all the characteristics of a living organism) that controls its behaviour.
An important inheritance This is epigenetic inheritance i e. inheritance above the level of genes. This means that heritable changes in gene expression are caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence.
Epicentromere's success in this field came from uncovering the mechanism by which cells recruit new proteins.
"We found an adaptor, or bridging molecule, which fits to an old protein and a new one.
This represents a major step in understanding the role of epigenetic systems t
#Aquaszero#New product to make drinking water safer Aquaszero New product to make drinking water safer Arsenic may be found as a water
or food contaminant in many parts of the world including Europe. High levels of arsenic are still being detected in groundwater of countries such as Hungary, Greece, Italy, Spain, Romania, Finland, England, Germany and Serbia.
Fotolia, 2012 Drinking water with high arsenic levels leads to skin diseases and disorders in blood vessels. It gradually evolves into cancers that can attack the bladder,
lungs and kidneys and induce diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Partial solutions exist for the filtering out of arsenic
but two types of arsenic are found in drinking water. One type of arsenic (As V) is removed easily,
and it is 60 times more toxic. It needs a separate pre-treatment stage to transform it to the less toxic As V. As part of a European union (EU) funded research project, an innovative consortium in Greece,
backed by an EU grant of#833,842, has developed a new adsorbent media that can easily
Known as Aquaszero, the product can be used in existing water treatment filter cartridges where the arsenic bonds firmly to the Aquaszero granules.
When the granules are saturated they can be buried safely in the ground as inert waste. Behind the development is led by a consortium Loufakis Chemicals SA in association with three SMES involved in water engineering,
the University of Thessalonika and research institutes in Greece and abroad. Loufakis Chemicals SA expects that this low-cost material will be used widely as the adsorbent media in new water treatment plants,
"Our innovative Aquaszero granules now provide a cost-effective solution to easily remove all traces, even the highly toxic form of arsenic (As III."
A production line has already been set up at the Aquaszero factory in Thessalonika with an initial capacity of 1, 200 Kgs per day
#PROMS and EAF-PROMS#The promise of stronger lighter greener steel Steel is synonymous with strength:
researchers have forged a steel that hits all those marks: an ultra-strong alloy with deformation properties can be manufactured with improved energy efficiency, offering a huge industrial potential.
The two EU projects, PROMS and EAF-PROMS, looked at ways of producing novel ultra strong steel grades with high manganese content.
A PROM ran from 2003 to 2006, and was backed by#560,693 from the European commission. Its follow-up, EAF-PROMS ran from 2006 to 2008,
with#391,661 In commission backing and had a particular focus on steel production in electric arc furnaces (EAF). High-strength steel alloys are particularly interesting for carmakers,
allowing them to reduce car weights through thinner sheets. They also help conserve resources: lighter, fuel efficient vehicles mean less overall steel use and ultimately less fuel consumption (by some estimates, up to 0. 2 litres per 100 km) and carbon emissions.
There are other areas where these ultra-strong steels could be used, like high temperature energy production, where they resist oxidation
and corrosion while maintaining ductility. here is a whole range of industrial applications where these high strength steels could be used,
says Karl-Heinz Spitzer, one of the project leaders. Manganese is crucial for the alloy, increasing depth of hardening and improving strength and toughness by up to three times.
While most steels contain up to 1. 2%manganese (and much smaller amounts of silicon nickel, chromium, aluminium, molybdenum and copper), manganese steel alloys have around 13%manganese.
However these projects looked at manganese proportions of between 10 and 25%.%But producing such high-manganese steels is tricky
and requires a delicate balance of other elements to ensure the final alloys retains its qualities.
Spitzer, a process metallurgy professor at the Clausthal University of Technology in the German town of Clausthal-Zellerfeld, says the key challenge was to develop a production process that brought all the elements together. his high strength steel cannot be cast by conventional continuous casting,
he says. t needs new production technologies. The projects showed that with the right combinations of elements,
mass production of high-manganese steel grades is possible using either the blast furnace-basic oxygen converter route or the electric arc furnace route.
Indeed on the back of PROMS and EAF-PROMS, the projectsindustrial partner, Salzgitter AG steel group, decided to build the world first line for production of high-manganese steel grades based on the electric arc furnace route.
Salzgitter is using a strip casting production process, which means less energy and carbon dioxide use than traditional technologies:
the low casting thickness 8 to 15 mm compared to 200 to 250 mm for conventional continuous casting-means it is possible to save up to 75%during casting, heating and rolling.
The projects could thus transform the steelmaking, helping Europe develop light but strong metals through energy efficient production. urope steel industry can only survive with innovative products and technologies.
We hope we can contribute to this challenge with our projects, says Spitzer. Projects details PROMS Participants:
#SMARTFIRE#Reducing energy consumption in steel mills SMARTFIRE Reducing energy consumption in steel mills The reheating process in steel mills prepares metal stock, such as steel plates for hot rolling by heating them to a target temperature.
The hot steel can then be deformed by successive sets of rolls to achieve the desired final size and shape.
However, reheating is an energy-intensive process where the costly energy consumption of furnaces is of increasing concern as it also impacts on the environment and indeed, the profitability of steel mills.
SMARTFIRE was a 42 month Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS) project that greatly enhanced reheating furnace operation,
maintenance and product quality by improved diagnostics as well as better monitoring and control of process parameters.
which was coordinated by European steel producer Tata Steel, had partners in Spain, Germany, Sweden and the United kingdom. In total,
SMARTFIRE received some#1. 2 million in funding from the European commission. Specifically, SMARTFIRE developed a real-time diagnostics
The project also saw the build up of residue on the reheated metal stock being reduced significantly."
"The project team developed an innovative flame analysis system capable of detecting burner operating parameters such as firing rate, excess air levels and pollutant emissions,
and furnace diagnostic system utilising process databases to furnish statistical and physical models"said project coordinator, Graham Andrews of Tata Steel.
The resulting DWS (Diagnostic, Warning, Suggestions) system takes advantage of the accumulation of process data generated by modern furnace control systems.
Such data includes many measurements such as furnace zone temperatures, gas and air flows, and stock details,
air-to-fuel ratio, furnace zone temperatures and energy distribution. Qualitative evaluations of the SMARTFIRE results have been carried out
The consortium has reported net energy savings of between 1 and 3, %scale reduction of some 4%as well as yield and quality improvement due to better temperature regulation.
According to Andrews, the benefits of SMARTFIRE can contribute to Europe's competitiveness due to associated energy savings, increased quality and productivity."
"Any fuel energy and cost savings will be accompanied by reductions in emissions such as carbon dioxide. These savings also increase profitability
The knowledge acquired in the project can be shared easily with the entire reheating furnace area of the European steel sector."
#Building new plastics with smart software Chemists can help create a wide range of plastics from polymers,
When chemists come up with a new idea for a plastic, it can sometimes involve a trial-and-error process of mixing elements in the laboratory.
To assist with this, the European union (EU)- funded NANOPOLY research fellows have developed a new software tool to model the polymer molecules on a nanoscale.
The innovation developed by the project team could pave the way for the tailoring of polymers to specific industry needs.
To create the software tool the researchers combined the strengths of various disciplines (from applied mathematics and software engineering to chemistry.
The project started when Christof Schütte, NANOPOLY project coordinator and professor at the Freie Universität Berlin,
Germany, was talking to researchers from chemical company BASF and software company Cit about the need for modern software tools to design plastics from polymers. he new software tool helps us predict how different production processes affect the nanostructure of the polymers,
says Schütte. his is expected to support the European polymer industry innovate their products and lead to the creation of a new generation of researchers that are trained in mathematical and software modelling,
as well as polymer process design, he adds. his allows us to tailor the production process to the requirements of the polymer molecules
and to the resulting polymer material, says Schütte. The innovative software tool was developed by researchers taking part in the EU Marie Curie programme of support for postgraduate fellows. he NANOPOLY project gave them vital training in complementary research fields.
The training helped build a mix of competences in mathematical modelling, software engineering, as well as polymer chemistry, explains Schütte.
The project has supported already several early stage researchers in their career, with three of them hired for permanent positions by chemical company BASF and five others finding post-doctorate positions.
Furthermore one of the experienced researchers has been appointed as an assistant professor at Freie Universität Berlin. nterdisciplinary research is hard work,
but it pays off career-wise and intellectually, affirms Schütte. While Europe still plays a major role in polymer processing and product development,
large-scale production of commodity polymers is shifting increasingly to other regions of the world. But innovative, specialised commodities,
along with smarter production strategies, can help European researchers and companies stay competitive in this field. Project details Project acronym:
NANOPOLY Participants: Germany (Coordinator), Portugal, Czech republic, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland Proj. N°238700 Total costs:##2 702 706 EU contribution:#
#2 702 706 Duration: October 2009-September 201 i
#PRECO#Innovative construction technique cuts costs and building time Infrastructure is a funny thing. No one notices it when it operates smoothly.
But one little problem is all it takes for it to move to the top of everyone's list of annoyances.
While anyone can appreciate why yearlong detours caused by construction lead to high levels of frustration,
few pause to reflect that without infrastructure, European citizens'great privilege of being able to move freely across the EU's 27 member states'borders to live
and work would be nothing but an idealistic fantasy. Perhaps more than any other structure bridges-which literally span gaps
and traverse barriers-represent that privilege. Yet their construction in particular is notorious for taking years.
All that may soon change thanks to a new construction technology known by its acronym Preco-Beam (which stands for Prefabricated Enduring Composite beams based on innovative shear transmission.
By combining steel and concrete in prefabricated composite structures with reinforced concrete slabs, the European union (EU)- funded Preco-Beam project found a way to shave months off construction times
which ran from 2006 to 2009 and received#838,000 in EU funding. Already now eight new railway bridges using Preco-Beam have been built in Germany, Austria and Poland."
"The main innovative feature of this technology,"says Hedberg, "is the way the steel connects to concrete, by a structure known as the composite dowel."
"Previously, connectors were headed studs (a kind of large nail with flattened end) made of steel.""But using headed studs has disadvantages,
"explains Project Coordinator Dr. Günter Seidl, from the German consulting engineering company SSF Ingenieure.""Our technology results in great savings of steel and thus leads to significant cost reduction.
There are also less maintenance costs because the constructions are extremely long lasting. This is thanks to the composite dowel we use,
which provides a very ductile connection and yields high safety-levels for infrastructure users. The Preco-Beam consortium invented a new shape for this composite dowel,
which connects steel and concrete: namely an I-section which can be divided into two steel T-beams by one simple cut."
"Through this new system we can make much slenderer bridges than was previously possible, which require 40 percent less steel,
"Seidl says proudly of the project's achievements.""Prefabricating the parts in a controlled workshop not only improves their quality,
it also means we now only need days rather than months on site to erect the bridge."
"For instance, when the 140-year-old railway overpass'Simmerbach',located in Germany, was rebuilt using Preco-Beam technology,
transport only had to be interrupted for a weekend. Composite structures-in which different building materials are combined-gained prominence in Europe because of their high resource efficiency and low maintenance requirement.
Yet, as European steel became less competitive compared to China's market, an innovative construction solution requiring less steel was needed.
In order to meet this challenge, the Preco-Beam consortium brought together seven partners from France, Poland, Germany, Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg."
"It's been a surprisingly fruitful working experience, "Seidl says.""The international combination of partners meant we learnt from each other on a technical,
showed that using Preco-Beam in its bridges could have cut expenses by approximately 40 percent.
The project has been an important achievement for Europe as well as it may increase the value of EU steel market shares,
and design rules via the Internet, and there are plans to use Preco-Beam for buildings.
Meanwhile, European citizens may be more likely to enjoy the benefits of their infrastructure, now that inconveniences caused by construction have been reduced to a mere weekend.
#SFERA#New technology combats fake medicines and saves lives Fotolia 2012while human lives and health are the mostimportant concern counterfeiting is a problemthat plagues other industries too.
High on thislist are perfume manufacturers with largesums of money at stake in sales of high-classluxury branded items.
Meanwhile the proceeds of counterfeitinggo to feed organised crime possibly eventerrorism and result in huge costs in the formof lost tax revenues.
The problem is simple: many medicines andalmost all perfumes come in glass containerswhich are hard to protect against thecounterfeiters.
Ink-based markings are easilyerased. The tags needed for Radio frequency identification (RFID) can be removed or altered.
Laser marking might be the answerbut existing techniques produce microscopiccracks in the glass. It was to find a solution to this problem that the EU-funded SFERA project was set upusing funding from a programme designed tostimulate innovation by fostering cooperationbetween small and medium sized businessesaround Europe.
On high-speed productionlines the right bottles need to be filled with the right medicines. Obliviously mistakes can be catastrophic.
Landslides and ground subsidence are serious problems across Europe and their costs are underestimated largely, according to Fausto Guzzetti of Italy National Research Council,
Examples include landslides riverbank erosion and melting permafrost; and the human contribution can arise from activities such as mining, large construction works or water extraction for irrigation.
View from space DORIS used the new mapping technologies offered by the Copernicus system of Earth observation satellites operated by the European space agency.
and the high spatial resolution provided by modern SAR sensors has meant that we could observe changes in urban
Indeed, the consortium brought together a diverse range of partners, researchers, SMES, SAR data specialists,
representing a wide range of environments and types of ground deformation. They produced accurate deformation
slow-moving rock slides and ground subsidence owing to overexploitation of aquifers in Italy and Spain;
human-induced subsidence caused by mining activities in Spain and Poland. And the diversity of cases investigated showed that DORIS technology can be applied across Europe, according to the team.
Demand for DORIS Landslides are natural events that shape landscapes. However, they come with a huge cost, both social and economic.
In Italy alone, landslides have caused over 5000 deaths and displaced more than 150 000 people during the last 50 years, at an estimated economic cost of#2 billion annually.
Insurance claims for subsidence in France and Germany run into hundreds of millions of euros annually and they are rising.
Thanks to the project, civil protection authorities and landslide investigators have access to information that was simply not available previously,
he says. rimary users are civil protection and planning authorities operating at a variety of scales, from urban to regional.
But others are getting involved, such as mining companies, builders and developers, and utility and transport companies,
and of course insurance companies. ur evaluation of potential markets, driven by our SME partners, makes us confident that DORIS technologies will have a long-term and sustainable impact across Europe,
Within 42 months thisambitious initiative intends to build a plantcapable of producing electricity heat coolingand desalinated water by using solar energyintegrated with other energy sources whichare available locally.
The last phase will be devoted toexperimental demonstration in the plantwhich is expected to produce each year morethan 3. 000 MWH of electricity and about8. 900 MWH of thermal energy.
The Concentrating Solar power (CSP) technologydue to be used in the plant has beendeveloped by ENEA the Italian national agencyfor new technologies energy and sustainableeconomic development.
and industrial residues. he thermal energy produced in this plantwill be the energy source in a desalinationunit as well as for the heating
and coolingof the surrounding areasays MATS Projectco-ordinator Fabrizio Fabrizi. he plant willproduce energy n demanddue to theintegration with a backup system containingvarious alternative fuels.
In addition industrial partners from Italy andegypt will feature. t is expected that the work carried outover the coming years will validate the newtechnology in Egypt which as we all knowis a perfect location for solar irradiationays Fabrizi.
Technologytransfer skills training and job creationare just some of the future benefits beingmentioned u
#ACTINOGEN#Uncovering a hidden source of new antibiotics In recent years, the emergence of multiple-drug-resistant bacteria has created a major health threat, for example through hospital-acquired infections from drug
-resistant'superbugs'such as MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and the rapidly emerging multi-drug resistant Gram negative hospital infections.
It has allowed also the resurgence of'old'diseases that we thought were things of the past,
such as new strains of tuberculosis against which existing drugs are powerless. It was to meet the unaddressed need for new antibiotics that the ACTINOGEN research project began in 2005
supported by funding provided under the European union's 6th Research Framework Programme (FP6. The aim was to discover
whether genetic techniques could be used to create new antibiotics from bacteria commonly found in garden soil.
Known as streptomycetes, these bacteria were recognised already as a source of antibiotics. But a turning point came in 2002,
with the first completion of the sequencing of the genome for one species of the bacterium, Streptomyces coelicolor.
As the ACTINOGEN project coordinator, Professor Paul Dyson of the Institute of Life science at Swansea University in the UK explains,
unravelling the secrets of the genome revealed a new mystery. It was known that the bacterium produced four different antibiotics
but the genome sequence revealed the potential for around 20. The known antibiotics represented only 20%of the possible total.
'hitherto lying undetected within the genome.''We could see the genes were there, but there was no product,
'explains Professor Dyson.''The big question was whether this genetic information was just redundant, or whether it could be used to trigger the production of new antibiotic compounds.'
'Meanwhile, the genomes of other streptomycete species had been sequenced and all had shown the same pattern, with between 12 and 15'cryptic pathways'.'
''If you wanted to discover new antibiotics, this had enormous implications, 'says Professor Dyson. During the project, ACTINOGEN scientists successfully triggered the creation of new antibiotics using the cryptic pathways of a number of streptomycete species,
thus confirming that here indeed was a rich seam of potential new drug discovery. With thousands of streptomycete species already known to science,
An equally important part of the project concerned the genetic engineering of a species of streptomycete which could be used as a kind of'all-purpose'production facility,
In the past, says Professor Dyson, achieving the necessary level of production took around 10 years. The ACTINOGEN Superhost allows the same result to be achieved within six months to one year.
but also for public health budgets and for the European biotechnology industry n
#0. 05mm: a new accuracy standard for industrial robots An EU-funded project brought together industry
Software and know-how from the project is already generating new business for Europe's robotic industry.
milling, lathing or fashioning it into parts and tools for different uses from car panels to precision medical instruments to moving parts in a paintball gun.
but factories really need more flexible, reliable and cost-efficient ways of building all the tools
and parts that go into our aircraft, cars, machine parts, says project coordinator Jan Willem Gunnink of UK-based Delcam.
Traditional machining is accurate to 0. 001 mm, whereas robots for machining applications are still at 1 mm.
while robots are not ready to machine an Airbus turbine blade, they are definitely viable for the pre-manufacturing processes of, for example, metal parts,
Improvements in programming and simulation software were needed to ensure irst-time-right adaptive machining once production commences.
COMET has come up with an integrated programming and simulation environment (PSIR), as developed by partner Delcam,
and demonstrate on-and off-line software, and which draws on data, metrics, tools and programming supplied by different partners. ur partners have shown how joined-up thinking results in closer-to-market-ready adaptive control solutions for better industrial robots,
says Gunnink. Team members are joining forces with other EU and national project partners to explore new applications for COMET robotics solutions in fields such as grinding, abrasive finishing,
and laser and fluid polishing. he software Delcam developed under COMET is already generating up to a million euros in additional sales,
says Gunnink. That is one of many sales streams coming out of the project work. Lund University, a project partner in Sweden, studied what happens
when robotic arms go off course and have created since Cognibotics a spin-off which helps factories deal with common problems like friction
and backlash (a small amount of movement in the robot joints that reduce accuracy). Germany ARTIS-MARPOSS, a project partner, used its Genior modular process monitoring system to detect broken, worn or missing tools.
Process monitoring like this improves the quality, reliability and stability of the cutting process, says Dirk Euhus,
which has been developed by fellow project partner Nisaform into a functioning system that monitors (using the ATIR technology of partner NIKON)
More details about exploitable results like this can be found on the project website, including training materials on using robots for machining,
explanations of the adaptive tracking system worked on by Nikon Metrology, and much more. One of the keys to COMET success
e spent public money, so wee prepared to fly our results to the moon and back to give taxpayers a return on investment.
Delcam and our other exploitation partners are already making sure the results don collect dust!
and waste treatments, such as incineration. In addition, because many of these materials are derived plastics from fossil fuels, they also increase the impact on climate change.
With the above in mind, a European research project has developed new environmentally friendly materials that can replace oil-based plastic films used in packaging for food
and other goods. The Flexpakrenew research team developed a number of new techniques that use renewable materials reinforced with nanoparticles and innovative coatings.
These materials can compete with plastic films and other flexible packaging in terms of performance and cost, but have a much lower environmental impact.
Flexpakrenew began in September 2008 and received#3. 28 million in funding under the EU's Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7.
The project was coordinated by Dr David Guerin from the Centre Technique de l'Industrie des Papiers, Cartons et Celluloses (CTP) in Grenoble, France.
The CTP worked with partners from various research institutes and the food and packaging industries across six European countries.
The global demand for flexible packaging is growing by 5%annually and in 2010 had an approximate value of some#41 billion.
"We used life-cycle assessment techniques to look at the impacts on the environment throughout the production, use and disposal of the new materials.
In addition, the project paid special attention to product life cycle and thorough sustainability assessment to prove environmental economic and social performance and potential for up-scaling from laboratory to pilot scale.
Due to the high amount of materials the flexible packaging industry uses, the progress made in this project has the potential to make a significant improvement to overall sustainability.
The development of the new packaging products for a global market will make an important contribution towards the reduction of the dependency of the packaging sector on petroleum resources and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
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