Human Technopole

👐 The Human Technopole's National Facilities are now open to the national scientific community! External users affiliated with universities, IRCCS, and public research entities can access our state-of-the-art technological hubs for free through open calls 👉 https://lnkd.in/d49j-WUX 🔬 HT National Facilities offer open access to cutting-edge technologies in the fields of genomics, genome engineering and disease modelling, imaging, structural biology, and data handling and analysis. 👩🔬 👨🔬 Our mission is to support the scientific community by providing access to advanced technologies and expertise, training programmes, and technology/method development projects, with the ultimate goal of increasing the impact of Italian research on an international level. 🔎 Access is granted based on the principles of scientific excellence, with the aim of supporting high-quality research. Watch the video to discover the access modalities and timelines.

🔬 Utilizing cryo-electron tomography, mass spectrometry, and AlphaFold, our Gaia Pigino Group modeled retrograde IFT trains in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cilia. The study, published in Cell, unveils how anterograde IFT trains switch to retrograde at the ciliary tip, offering insights into direction-specific cargo binding and transport. 🧐 Their findings show that retrograde trains are highly flexible and differ significantly from anterograde trains, with complete disassembly and reassembly at the ciliary tip. The research advances our understanding of ciliary function and could lead to new treatments for ciliopathies.

👀 "First thing first: Γνῶθι σαυτόν (know thyself)" 🧐 Meet Paolo Swuec, Head of the National Facility for Structural Biology of Human Technopole, who tells us how his passion for unraveling mysteries that impact human health led him to head the first Italian Cryo-EM Facility. Read the interview 👉 https://lnkd.in/dDiUvwXS

🎉 Congratulations to the Craig Glastonbury Group and Nicole Soranzo, awarded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to develop a machine learning model that enables broad disease, trait and biomarker prediction from single-cell data while simultaneously identifying relevant implicated cell types.

L'Italia vanta una tradizione accademica di eccellenza, ma per trattenere i nostri “cervelli” e renderli competitivi a livello globale, è essenziale investire in ricerca, offrire condizioni migliori ai ricercatori e impegnarsi nella creazione di una cultura della condivisione del dato. Con l'avvio delle nuove aree di ricerca e l'apertura delle Piattaforme Nazionali, Human Technopole è al centro di una trasformazione che mira a valorizzare i talenti e rendere il nostro Paese piú innovativo e competitivo. Per Panorama della Sanità, il nostro direttore Marino Zerial esplora le sfide della ricerca italiana e i risultati raggiunti da HT.

🧠 Our Oliver Harschnitz Group (Neurogenomics) with an international team of colleagues found a gene mutation causing SARS-CoV-2 encephalitis. The discovery, published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, helps explain why some people get brain inflammation from COVID-19 and that vaccination is crucial for patients with DBR1 deficiency. “It will now be important to decipher the detailed molecular mechanisms by which the accumulation of intronic lariats impairs cell-intrinsic immunity to viruses in the brainstem. Such studies may pave the way for developing effective preventive or therapeutic measures for patients prone to brainstem encephalitis” - Oliver Harschnitz

🧬 Our PhD student Francesco Cisternino and the Craig Glastonbury Group developed a self-supervised machine learning tool that combines histology, gene expression, and genetic variation to automatically identify and cluster distinct tissue substructures, cells, and pathological features in human tissues. The study, published in Nature Communications, reveals new insights into tissue variability and genetic impacts. “As histological archives and pathology workflows become digital, we believe there is substantial opportunity for using self-supervised learning to uncover novel, fundamental biology about tissue structure, function and its variability in a population in both healthy and diseased subjects” - Craig Glastonbury, research lead.

Sustainability and respect for the environment are important goals for HT. One of the providers of our employees' lunch is Planeat.eco (Alimentiamoci S.r.l. Società Benefit), which delivers meals in reusable containers, avoiding food and packaging waste. Here are some of the eco-achievements which have been made possible thanks to our sustainable choices! 🥗 1600 kg of food saved - equivalent to more than 5000 portions of lasagna 🌫 Over 4000 kg of CO2 avoided - equivalent to 66 years of use of a low-energy light bulb 🌊 Over 950000 litres of water saved - equivalent to more than 12000 five-minute showers 🏝 18000 m² of land saved - equivalent to 2,5 football pitches 🍶 Nearly 2000 kg of plastic avoided - equivalent to almost 50000 1,5-litre bottles

📊 Do you need to interpret complex and large-scale biomedical datasets? The Human Technopole’s National Facility for Data Handling & Analysis is now available to the national scientific community! Find out how to access it here 👉 https://lnkd.in/dB7hm8nh 🔎 The mission of the National Facility for Data Handling and Analysis is to support the national research community by providing state-of-the-art analysis of biological datasets generated by high-throughput genomic and imaging technologies.

📊 Thanks to the use of big data and AI, new markers have been identified to predict the risk of prostate cancer recurrence, even after ten years. These ‘alarm bells’ are the result of a new study conducted by our Andrea Sottoriva (Head, Computational Biology) and colleagues from The Institute of Cancer Research in London and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, published today on Nature Cancer. 🔬 The study may help doctors better tailor treatment for this disease, adopting more aggressive therapies in cases where these parameters indicate a higher risk of disease recurrence.