Fundació URV has granted 4 projects to URV research groups, in the framework of the R2B2024 (Research to Business) program focused on the sustainability and improvement of environmental quality.
Two of those awards have been given to researchers of TecnATox.
The first project is entitled Development of a platform based on Caenorhabditis elegans for the evaluation of new bioactive ingredients against obesity (Bio_elegans), and has been awarded to the Nutrigenomics group of the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, with a team of researchers formed by Enrique Calvo, as principal investigator, Miquel Mulero, Francisca Isabel Bravo and Néstor Ibarz.
The main objective is to create a screening platform for bioactive compounds against obesity using the nematode C. elegans as a model. The implementation of this project will make possible to evaluate the compounds produced by the platform of peptide hydrolyzates that the Nutrigenomics group has and to offer anti-obesogenic activity analysis services to companies interested in the commercialization of bioactive ingredients. The availability of a platform capable of rapidly screening these potential ingredients as anti-obesity agents opens the door to the development of high-throughput methods to discover and characterize valuable natural compounds. C.elegans is presented as a flexible, fast, economical animal model with a high level of extrapolation to humans, making it an ideal candidate to develop this screening platform for bioactive compounds. The development and application of this platform is expected to represent a high-performance and innovative service, encouraging collaboration with companies in the agri-food sector. In addition, it is believed that the implementation of this technology will mean a significant technological enrichment for the URV and a new impetus to attract external funding.
The second awarded project is related to microplastics, and it counts with the participation of Joaquim Rovira and Nora Expósito as experts in this field. Joan Josep Carvajal Martí (Department of Physical and Inorganic Chemistry), principal researcher of the project, and his team have developed the prototype of a device, called μ-PlàsTIC, which determines in real time, in situ and continuously, the size, the shape, the number of particles and the chemical composition of microplastics present in drinking water, food and the environment. This analysis is essential to identify them and modify their industrial processes in order to reduce or eliminate their production.
It must be highlighted that they are not the first researchers of TecnATox awarded with an R2B. In 2023, Miquel Mulero received the R2B award for the project Integrated technical approach for the discovery of new bioactive compounds with beneficial properties for skin health. Previous awarded investigators include Marta Schuhmacher, who led the project Integration of innovative techniques to measure the amount of micro-nano plastics in environmental samples (2019), and José L. Domingo, principal investigator of Ribefood 2012. A computational tool for a healthy and pollutant-free diet (2012).
