Retinopathies constitute an extreme societal and socioeconomic burden that is expected to increase with an aging population and the increased prevalence of diabetes. These diseases, including age-related macular degeneration and proliferative diabetic retinopathy share neovascularization as a common etiology involving the pathological growth of retinal capillaries leading to blindness if left untreated. Current treatment modalities involve specialized injections into the eye that require not only outpatient visits to specialized treatment centers but are also associated with significant adverse effects. Orally bioavailable medications could revolutionize the treatment of retinopathies, by reducing adverse effects, sustaining vision, lowering the direct and indirect financial burden associated with these diseases, and increasing access to healthcare. Inspired by this idea, we have developed an approach that can be exploited to target essentially any therapeutic molecule to the eye. Our novel strategy of drug targeting will not only enrich the modified molecules in retinal tissue but will also reduce the therapeutic oral dose compared to existing anti-angiogenic therapy in cancer thereby increasing the safety of the treatment. This is achieved by absorbing a minute amount of the chemically and biologically stable molecules resulting in an extremely low plasma concentration and relying on a biological mechanism in the eye to activate the molecules to tether them to retinal target receptors and thereby extracting them from the blood. In the present application, we propose to demonstrate proof-of-concept of this strategy by modifying inhibitors of the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR). VEGFR is an endothelial receptor tyrosine kinase that is a key mediator of angiogenesis and an established drug target for the treatment of retinopathies. Our approach will elicit a paradigm shift in how we design future drug delivery strategies to the retina.

The project consortium of DeepBEAT aims to develop ground-breaking technologies to use geochemistry for the detection of deep-seated land deposits. Transforming Europe's exploration sector by integrating cutting-edge technologies and sustainable practices will push Europe towards a climate-neutral and socially responsible economy. The exploration of deep land deposits should employ environmentally friendly, socially acceptable, and ultra-low impact methodologies to ensure the citizens that exploration activities can be conducted responsibly. Acceptance to exploration and mining will be a cornerstone towards cultivating a more resilient and inclusive European society. DeepBEAT final outcome will be a workflow which addresses these aspects by two means: I) DeepBEAT plans to engage with the local communities at the test sites to learn about concerns, hesitancy and what is the emotional core of these. Experiences from these events will be included in exploration workflow as an integral part, following the principles of free, prior, informed consent, which requires to interact with communities at a very early stage. II) DeepBEAT proposes ten novel technological developments, all designed to minimize impact on environment and maximise sustainability. These research and innovation developements have the potential to push the limits of surface geochemical exploration to an other level. They comprise a) new insights to ultra-high resolution analytical chemistry, b) increasing sampling strategy efficiency, c) introducing ground-breaking new concepts of dealing with elemental measurement data, d) reducing exploration costs by sample selection, e) testing novel phyto-geochemical media, and f) introducing UAV assisted biogeochemical sampling. Detailed understanding of the deposits complement the workflow to allow the understanding of the mineralizations as part of mineral systems and AI-assisted 3D mineral prospectivity modelling.

SUSHEAT develops and validates, up to TRL 5, 3 novel enabling technologies: high-temperature heat pump (HT-HP), Phase Change Material (PCM) bio-inspired Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system, and Control & Integration Twin (CIT) system; for heat upgrade in top-level labs. It will attain an efficient heat upgrade up to 150-250 °C thanks to the use the innovative Stirling-based HT-HP, working with hellium and enlarging the industrial exploitability of heat upgrade systems, reaching a COP up to 2.8 for temperature ratios of 1.2. The integration of innovative TES will ensure a reliable, flexible, and customizable heat delivery with full decoupling from any waste heat recovery and renewables availability. Moreover, its CIT will provide user-friendly tools and a digital twin for the control system and advising industrial stakeholders, based on smart decision-making algorithms. SUSHEAT will bring an effective self-assessment of the most suited heat upgrade system integration including not only its key enabling components but, beyond, also leveraging on off-the-self RES-based units, particularly solar thermal collectors even enlarging the feasibility of Concentrating Solar Power systems that can extend its operation working at low temperature. Two case-studies are replicated for validation at TRL5, and 4 additional cases are analysed in-depth to cover other sectors as Pulp & Paper, Beverages, Petrochemical, Textile & leather and basic metals. By developing industry-focused self-assessment tools, and directly engaging different industrial stakeholders, SUSHEAT will contribute to identify the target industrial processes and sites which would benefit from the concept, rising awareness of various heat upgrade benefits within the industry and providing solutions to maximize the industrial efficiency while contributing to the sector’s decarbonization, reducing the GHG emissions up to 145 gCO2/kWh (excluding solar contribution and based on EU 2020 intensity and the use NG).

Nanocomposites are promising for many sectors, as they can make polymers stronger, less water and gas permeable, tune surface properties, add functionalities such as antimicrobial effects. In spite of intensive research activities, significant efforts are still needed to deploy the full potential of nanotechnology in the industry. The main challenge is still obtaining a proper nanostructuring of the nanoparticles, especially when transferring it to industrial scale, further improvements are clearly needed in terms of processing and control. The OptiNanoPro project will develop different approaches for the introduction of nanotechnology into packaging, automotive and photovoltaic materials production lines. In particular, the project will focus on the development and industrial integration of tailored online dispersion and monitoring systems to ensure a constant quality of delivered materials. In terms of improved functionalities, nanotechnology can provide packaging with improved barrier properties as well as repellent properties resulting in easy-to-empty features that will on the one hand reduce wastes at consumer level and, on the other hand, improve their acceptability by recyclers. Likewise, solar panels can be self-cleaning to increase their effectiveness and extend the period between their maintenance and their lifetime by filtering UV light leading to material weathering. In the automotive sector, lightweight parts can be obtained for greater fuel efficiency. To this end, a group of end-user industries from Europe covering the supply and value chain of the 3 target sectors and using a range of converting processes such as coating and lamination, compounding, injection/co-injection and electrospray nanodeposition, supported by selected RTDs and number of technological SMEs, will work together on integrating new nanotechnologies in existing production lines, while also taking into account nanosafety, environmental, productivity and cost-effectiveness issues.

Personal care, Cosmetic and biomedical industries deal with high-value and/or large volume consumption of polymer-based products which are often derived from fossil sources. Although a number of alternative bio-based polymers is the subject of recent research, more effort is still needed to increase their specific functionalities and performances in order to proceed with their true translation into market. PolyBioSkin aims at developing skin-contact biopolymer-based product parts with increased performance and functionality, such as parts of diapers, cosmetic pads and wound dressings. Indeed, PolyBioSkin will focus on two main classes of bio-based polymers relevant for next generation bio-based industry: biopolyesters (polylactic acid and polyhydroxyalkanoates) because fully renewable, biocompatible and biodegradable and available at an industrial scale, and natural polysaccharides (cellulose/starch and chitin/chitosan), derived from biomass and food waste, for their peculiar properties, such as absorbency and anti-infectivity. Films and textiles will be produced starting from these polymers and their combinations to prove that key products and/or product parts in sanitary, cosmetic and biomedical industry can be effectively translated from a fossil-derived to bio-based polymer production. PolyBioSkin will provide to skin-contact products a much more environmentally friendly end of life than the current accumulation in landfills or incineration, thanks to their biodegradability allowing the organic recycling.