Projects

The DYLAN project is seeking the conditions under which Europe's linguistic diversity can be an asset for the development of knowledge and the economy. 

DYLAN is in an Integrated Project (Contract N° 028702) funded under Framework Programme 6 (FP6) of the European Union. The project embraces 20 research institutions in 12 European Countries and runs for five years.

PanFluVac or "Efficacious vaccine formulation system for prophylactic control of influenza pandemics" is a Specific Targeted Research and Innovation Project financed by the Sixth Framework Program of the European Union.

Influenza epidemics remain a burden to both human heath and national economies, as witnessed by the recent advance of pathogenic avian H5N1 influenza virus. Now that H5N1 virus has been detected in wild birds in Europe, the PANFLUVAC consortium is committed to creating an efficacious vaccine against this virus, to provide strong protection in a pandemic situation.

MemStick or "Synaptic mechanisms of memory loss: Novel cell adhesion molecules as therapeutic targets" is a Collaborative Project financed by the 7th Framework Program of the European Union in the HEALTH priority.

Memory loss is a central symptom in different diseases, and represents a significant social and economic burden for a large percentage of European citizens. The molecular and neurobiological bases of memory deficits are largely unknown and there are currently no drugs available that can markedly decelerate or prevent memory decline. To address this major problem, the MemStick project investigates the role of novel synaptic cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) in memory loss, and the therapeutic value of targeting these CAMs to restore memory function and associated neurobiological mechanisms at the synaptic level.

IBDase addresses the etiology and pathogenesis of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), a multifactorial disease influenced by environmental factors in a background of complex genetic susceptibility. The project envisages a multidisciplinary approach for innovative diagnosis and therapy focused on mucosal proteases and their inhibitors (P/PIs).

IBDase is a Collaborative Project financed by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union in the HEALTH priority.

The objective of NEMSIC is to develop ad new generation of smart sensors and actuators for gases and biological substances particularly suited for monitoring of critical environment and for genetics, pharmacology and drug discovery. NEMSIC envisions to integrate solid-state semiconductor micro/nano devices and micro/nano mechanical devices in a single chip for new functionalities and increased performances.

NEMSIC is a Collaborative Project funded under the ICT priority of the FP7 programme of the European Commission.

ULTRAsponder stands for In Vivo Ultrasonic Transponder System for Biomedical Applications and is a Collaborative Project funded under the ICT priority of the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission.

The ULTRAsponder project aims at improving the monitoring of parameters and the patients’ life quality using ultrasound waves in an innovative way for communication between an implanted transponder sensor and an external control unit. A prototype will be conceived for the monitoring of congestive heart failure.

The FLAVIOLA research project is about the positive impact of flavanols found e.g. in chococolate and red wine on cardiovascular health. FLAVIOLA envisions to deliver biological evidence to fully understand flavanol uptake and its influencing factors, flavanol metabolism and cellular effects, as well as formulating recommendations on food and diet design to both the food industry and the European health organisations and governments. 

FLAVIOLA is a Collaborative Project funded under the Theme Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Biotechnology of the FP7 programme of the European Commission.

The main goal of the PARYLENS project is to develop the next generation optical devices (tuneable lenses, truly accommodative intraocular lenses, bistable flexible displays) based on an innovative and reliable concept inspired by natural optical systems such as the human and the fly eyes.

The development of these devices relies on recent advances in nanotechnology combined with the patented SOLID (Solid On Liquid deposition) process, which offers the possibility to grow a stable solid layer directly onto a liquid, such that the solid uniformly replicates and encapsulates the liquid template.

PARYLENS is a Collaborative Project funded under the Theme NMP of the FP7 programme of the European Commission. PARYLENS started in October 2010 and will run for three years.

New Medicines For Tuberculosis (NM4TB)

New Medicines for Tuberculosis (NM4TB) aims to successfully develop new drugs for the treatment of tuberculosis (TB) through an integrated approach implemented by a team that combines some of Europe's leading academic TB researchers with a major pharmaceutical company and three SMEs, all with a strong commitment to discovering new anti-infective agents.

SCIPROM has entered NM4TB during the last project year and is now in charge of the project management.

NM4TB runs from January 2006 until June 2011.

The More Medicines for Tuberculosis (MM4TB) consortium evolved from the highly successful FP6 project, New Medicines for TB (NM4TB), that delivered a candidate drug for clinical development two years ahead of schedule. Building on these firm foundations and exploiting its proprietary pharmacophores, MM4TB will continue to develop new drugs for TB treatment.

The project combines 27 partners from Europe, India, South africa and USA and includes two major pharmaceutical companies and four SMEs. It started in February 2011 and will run for five years.

Veg-i-Trade is funded by the seventh Framework programme for research of the European Commission. The project seeks to assess the impact of anticipated climate change and globalisation on the safety issues concerning fresh produce and derived food products. Research will be performed concerning the economic structure of the fresh produce chain, and control measures to minimise microbiological and chemical risks will be developed.

Veg-i-Trade unifies 23 international partners from universities, research institutes, SMEs and large industrial partners. Recommendations concerning good practices and quality assurance in the fresh produce supply chain will be developed and exchanged via international collaborations and capacity building.

Veg-i-Trade runs from May 2010 to April 2014.

STEEPER is a major European research initiative, with several leading academic and corporate research organizations across Europe, to address the alarming growth of energy consumption by electronic devices, ranging from mobile phones to laptops to televisions to supercomputers. STEEPER aims to increase the energy efficiency of these devices, when active, by 10 times and virtually eliminate power consumption when they are in passive or standby mode.

Coordinated by Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), STEEPER includes leading corporate research organizations IBM Research - Zurich, Infineon and GLOBALFOUNDRIES, large research institutes CEA-LETI and Forschungszentrum Julich, academic partners, University of Bologna, University of Dortmund, University of Udine and the University of Pisa and the managerial support of SCIPROM.

Single-photon nanostructured detectors for advanced optical applications

SINPHONIA was an international research project funded by the European Commission (FP6). It targeted the development of near-infrared single-photon optical detectors based on nanostructured superconductors.

SCIPROM was the managing partner of the consortium. The project ran from January 2006 to March 2009.

SINPHONIA has led to many publications in high-ranked journals. As an entry point to the subject we recommend a joint publication by several SINPHONIA partners in Nature Photonics:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2008.51.

3D-DEMO was an international research project funded by the European Commission (FP6). It proposed a new capability in thin film deposition, effectively associating cost optimisation, flexibility and sustainability based on the Laser-Assisted Chemical Beam Epitaxy (LACBE) process. The proposed method will allow the growth of oxides with 3D patterning of properties during the growth in only one step (3D selective and graded properties at the micrometer and nanometre scale).

SCIPROM was the managing partner of the consortium. 3D-DEMO ran for three and a half years, from November 2006 to April 2010.

BIOSAFETY-EUROPE was a Coordination Action funded through the European Commission’s Sixth Framework Programme which started April 1st 2006. The project federated 19 partners from 10 European countries with the overall aim of promoting European harmonisation and the exchange of practices relating to biosafety and biosecurity management of biological containment facilities.
BIOSAFETY-EUROPE ran from April 2006 to November 2008.

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The PERPLEXUS project developed a scalable hardware platform made of custom reconfigurable devices endowed with bio-inspired capabilities that enables the simulation of large-scale complex systems and the study of emergent complex behaviours in a virtually unbounded wireless network of computing modules.

PERPLEXUS has come into existence thanks to a grant from the European Commission 6th framework programme and regroups eight research institutions, from four different countries, including an industrial partner. PERPLEXUS ran for three and a half years, starting from September 2006 to February 2010.

SCIPROM was the managing partner of the consortium.

The MagRSA project made major progress towards a new diagnostics platform that will provide a fast, simple and accurate identification of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) from clinical sample. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is responsible for most nocosomial and community-acquired infections and has been spreading in Europe in the past ten years.

This project gathered six European entities from Switzerland, Germany, France and Sweden, amongst whom three leading academic institutions and two high-tech SMEs. MagRSA was funded by a grant from the European Commission 6th framework programme. The project ran for three years, from October 2006 to March 2010.

Real hydraulic flows in the turbine industry, environmental and coastal engineering have crucial impacts on economy and society. Current computational fluid dynamics tools, have limited capabilities when simulating the complicated phenomena involved in flows. The meshless Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method is a new technology that represents an ideal tool to address these problems in a unified manner.

The Marie Curie FP6 ToK-IAP initiative ESPHI reinforced the collaboration between key SPH developers, researchers and users in UK, France and Switzerland, thus inducing a strong impulse in the EU through industrial added value applications, and facilitating access to this technology for both academia and industry.

ESPHI ran from October 2006 to September 2009.

SCIPROM accompanied the project as an external consultant.