Partners

Uppsala University

The computational (bio)chemistry group, that coordinates iSenseDNA, is part of the Biochemistry Program of the Department of Chemistry (BMC) at Uppsala University. The program is focused on issues related to the design and synthesis of biological macromolecules, analysis of the structure and dynamics of proteins, and complex molecular systems.

The computational (bio)chemistry group’s interests span a range of questions from studying the role of ligand-gated conformational changes in enzyme catalysis, protein-DNA recognition, DNA proofreading and repair, enzyme evolution, GTPase regulation, the dynamical behavior of disordered peptides, as well as the development of new approaches for computational enzymology. The computational (bio)chemistry group has access to extensive computational resources through generous grants awarded by the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing, SNIC, and it is part of The Uppsala Computational Biochemistry Initiative.

University of Padova

The UniPD team is locate at Department of Chemical Sciences of the University of Padova. The Department, hosting >90 tenure&tenure-track faculties, has an internationally recognized leading role in the development of interdisciplinary aspects of chemical sciences with research projects supported by European and Italian funding. In particular, DiSC has hosted 6 ERC grantees so far. DiSC researchers contribute to molecular sciences for health, alternative energy sources, catalysis, sustainable chemistry, sensors and biomedical diagnostics. DiSC hosts two PhD Courses: Molecular Sciences and Science and Engineering of Materials and Nanostructures. A total of about 1100 bachelor and master students, 80 PhD students and 50 post-docs are currently hosted by DiSC. A quarter of DiSC postdocs and PhD students come from abroad, funded by European projects, international programs and private foundations. DiSC has been selected as Department of Excellence by ANVUR (Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of University and Research Systems) to access nine million euro for the period 2018-2022, with the project NExuS: Nanochimica per l’Energia e la Salute (Nanochemistry for Energy and Health).

University of Umeå

Umeå University (UmU) was founded in 1965 and is Sweden's fifth oldest university. Today, it has a strong international and multicultural presence with students, teachers and researchers from all over the world (approx. 35,000 students and over 4,600 employees). The aim of the university is to continue becoming one of Scandinavia's best environments for study and research and meet the challenges of an ever-increasing global society. UmU is one of Sweden’s most comprehensive universities within all areas of scientific research. This research takes place on a broad scale in order to compete in the international arena. The university conducts ground-breaking research within several areas e.g. Biogeochemistry, Ecosystem Dynamics, Energy, Infections, Plant and Forest Biotechnology and Social Welfare Research. Furthermore, UmU carries out strong research in physics, for example in optical physics, nonlinear physics, plasma physics, general relativity, condensed matter physics and nanotechnology, photonics, biological physics, complex networks, space physics and physics education. A specific example of UmU’s world class research is Emmanuelle Charpentier, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 for her discovery of the CRISPR-Cas9 genetic scissors when she was active at UmU.

The UmU team is contributing mainly to WP4, ‘measuring conformational changes via optical fingerprints read-out’. In this WP, UmU unit will develop 2D IR pump-probe spectroscopy setup to access with sub-ps and sub-optical cycle resolution structural information, with the aim to identify and understand the link between molecular structural changes and optical features.

Desy

DESY is one of the world's leading centers in accelerator and photon science. About 2700 employees work at DESY, including more than 1100 scientists and about 500 young scientists. DESY accepts more than 3000 visiting scientists from all over the world every year. The Ultrafast Nonlinear Microphotonics Group has access to state-of-the-art laboratory infrastructure including advanced continuous-wave and pulses laser sources as well as test and measurement equipment. Moreover, the group has access to DESY’s high-performance computing (HPC) cluster for sample design as well as micro- and nano-fabrication capability through the Hamburg University’s Center for Hybrid Nanostructures.

CNR

The National Research Council of Italy (CNR) has an international relevance in the scientific scenario and in the development of high impact technologies. In this project CNR is represented by two groups with diverse and complementary expertise covering molecular biology, biochemistry, and biotechnology: The Institute of Biosciences and BioResources (IBBR), is working on biochemical characterization of marcromolecules involved in DNA metabolism (replication, repair, topology, protein engineering); The Institute of Structure of Matter (ISM) focusses its activity on design, synthesis and analysis of both well-established and new functional nano-, micro-, macro-scale materials to understand their complex properties.

CicBiomagune

The Center for Cooperative Research in Biomaterials- CIC biomaGUNE, member of the Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), is a non-profit research organization created to promote scientific research and technological innovation, and to create a new business sector based on biosciences. It is located in the Science and Technology Park of Gipuzkoa (Donostia-San Sebastián), the activity of CIC biomaGUNE is conducted by a team of 10 international and dynamic research groups, which develop high-level research at the interface between chemistry, physics, and biology..

The main research lines deal with the design, preparation and characterization of biofunctional nanostructures and their in vitro and in vivo biological evaluation, to be used in the study of biological processes and the development of biomedical tools such as theranostic or multitherapeutic platforms.

The Biomolecular Nanotechnology group, part of iSenseDNA, focuses on protein engineering toward the generation of functional nanostructures and bioinspired materials for applications in nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine.

The main objective is to develop versatile platforms based on simple protein building blocks for the fabrication of multiple protein-based hybrid functional nanostructures and biomaterials and by means of rational design, to generate protein assemblies with defined architectures and develop nanostructures and materials for applications in molecular electronics, sensing, catalysis, and photoactive systems.

ERSF

The ESRF, the European Synchrotron, owes its success to the international cooperation of its 21 partner countries. A leader in X-ray science, the ESRF is a centre of excellence for fundamental, applied and industrial research, with a wide range of applications in health and biology, the environment, materials physics and chemistry, energy, nanotechnology, geosciences, cultural heritage and paleontology. Equipped with a brand new generation of high-energy synchrotron (ESRF-EBS), the ESRF contributes to respond to the major societal challenges facing our society.

OrganoTherapeutics

The Luxembourgish biotech company OrganoTherapeutics S.a.r.l. makes use of a proprietary human-specific 3D in vitro model, the so-called midbrain organoids, for the discovery and development of effective drug candidates, which target neurodegeneration in Parkinson`s disease patients.