Industry

Trento relaunches the Life Sciences hub bet

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by Valentina Saini

2' min read

2' min read

The researchers and biotech companies have a new space available in Trentino, and specifically in Pergine Valsugana, with 325 square metres of laboratories, 208 square metres for office use, and over 500 square metres for logistics.

This is the new Life Sciences Hub of Trentino Sviluppo, desired by the Autonomous Province of Trento to bring together skills and technologies in a single space, and to enhance "a fundamental sector for the sustainable growth of the territory, that of the life sciences", as explained by the Councillor for Economic Development, Labour, University and Research Achille Spinelli during the inauguration.

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"A system choice aimed at creating virtuous collaborations and ensuring that this initial public investment stimulates private initiative and allows start-ups in the area to be competitive at an Italian and international level.

The Hub's laboratories are equipped with state-of-the-art machinery worth a total of around 280,000, including cell-counters, nucleofectors, chemical and biological hoods, shakers, autoclaves and refrigerators for cell preservation. There is already a first one established, the start-up Alia Therapeutics founded by researchers from the Department of Cell, Computational and Integrated Biology (CIBIO) of the University of Trento.

It is the first Italian company specialising in genome editing with CRISPR for the treatment of rare diseases, a technique that allows the targeted correction of DNA sequences to eliminate or replace harmful sequences, as CEO Letizia Goretti explained.

Three more companies will now be able to set up in the Pergine Life Sciences Hub. This is good news for CIBIO director Paolo Macchi, who described his department as a great breeding ground for research and innovation: 'For us, start-ups are an added value, they offer job prospects to our graduates and enrich the area with innovative skills. It is therefore important that the territorial system intervenes to support them in their growth, also in terms of space and infrastructure'.

And it is precisely CIBIO's Laboratory of Neuro-epigenetics that has just made a major breakthrough in the study of Huntington's disease, particularly towards understanding its complex molecular mechanisms. CIBIO researchers have discovered that the RNA molecule 'circHTT', which originates from the gene implicated in this neurodegenerative disease, plays an important role. It is "one of those molecules that until recently were considered junk, or 'junk Rna', because it was thought to be of no use," notes Marta Biagioli, head of the Laboratory of Neuro-epigenetics.

On the contrary, as researcher Jasmin Morandell explains, 'by modifying circHTT levels we are able to intervene on certain functional characteristics of the disease, the so-called phenotypes. This gives us a new research perspective to think of alternative methods to interfere with the disease'. Approximately 7,000 people in Italy are affected by Huntington's disease.

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