“Science for Cultural Heritage” (SCH) project led by the researchers V.Corregidor (C²TN) and N. Catarino (IPFN) was selected to participate in the Lab2Market@Tecnico 2020 program. It is an innovation acceleration program with the support of i-Deals and Everis Portugal, providing a total of 250 hours of business mentoring to the five selected projects. Last 4^th of June, the final ceremony of the program (via online) was held with the Final Pitch presentation of all projects, after 9 weeks in which the teams worked with experts to improve their ideas and try to introduce them on the market.
The SCH project aims to enhance the cultural heritage knowledge through simple and accurate characterization techniques, increasing the knowledge (and the value) of the objects. However, throughout the program, the scope has been extended to other sectors such as oil and gas, where companies have also shown interest in products. In general, the companies contacted have shown themselves open to discuss and give positive feedback on the products and the project has obtained very positive reactions. In the future it is planned to continue with the project, collaborating with some of the companies contacted.

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C²TN will participate in a new project entitled TOF-PET FOR PROTON THERAPY (TPPT), which was recently approved on the framework of a UT Austin-Portugal FCT call. The project will address the feasibility of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) with very good Time Of Flight (TOF) for range verification in proton radiation therapy. The C²TN team members, under the coordination of António Paulo, will contribute with the development and evaluation of the use of multifunctional gold nanoparticles as radiosensitizers in proton therapy of glioblastoma multiforme. The project will be led by a Portuguese company PETsys Electronics, SA, and will involve two other institutions in Portugal (LIP and ICNAS) and two institutions in Texas, USA (University of Texas - Austin, and the MD Anderson Cancer Center). C²TN-IST will manage directly a budget of 239 k€, from a total budget of 1.26M€.

COVID-19 testing involves the collaboration of researchers belonging to two research units of Técnico: the Center for Nuclear Sciences and Technologies (C²TN) and the Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB). During the first week, 830 tests were performed. The samples are received at the IST – CTN campus where the volunteers of the C²TN team perform the viral inactivation of the samples. The inactivation procedure is carried out at the Laboratory of Technological Assays in Clean Rooms (LETAL). After inactivation, the samples go to IST – Alameda campus where the iBB team extracts and detects the viral RNA present (or not) in the samples.

With this initiative, Técnico joins several other scientific institutions that are already performing SARS-CoV-2 detection tests, further contributing to the fight against this public health emergency.

 

 

C²TN joined the AHEAD community in the new AHEAD2020 project coordinated by Instituto Nazionale Di Astrofisica, Italy. Under the coordination of Miguel A. Reis, C²TN will contribute to AHEAD2020 objectives on Technology Innovation and Exploitation for Society by converting the current first-generation XMS based LCEA HRHE-PIXE facility installed in 2008, into XAHRM-Lab, a benchmark HiREDS facility holding an XMS‑PIXE system based on a novel X-ray Metallic Magnetic Calorimeter (MMC) detector. C²TN-IST will manage directly a budget of 185 k€, from a total budget of almost 10M€.

 

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