Israeli SMEs are to benefit from easier access to risk capital thanks to a new EU-backed loan guarantee facility under the Horizon 2020 programme. The deal, signed today by the European Investment Fund with finance provider Bank Leumi, will allow the bank to enter into new loan agreements with SMEs and small midcaps for a total of US $100m (~€89m) over the next two years. It marks the first InnovFin SME Guarantee to be signed in Israel, which has been associated to the EU framework programmes for research for the last 20 years. “The InnovFin SME Guarantee deal signed today will open up new ways of funding for innovative companies in Israel. It is yet another example of how open innovation and being open to the world under Horizon 2020 benefits both the EU and its partners,” said Innovation Commissioner Carlos Moedas. Bank Leumi CEO Rakefet Russak-Aminoach added: “Taking part in the European bank’s flagship programme for research and innovation is another step forward in our efforts to expand the Israeli funding of the industry. It will allow better financing terms for the Israeli high-tech community. It is only natural that the leading bank that is the most supportive of the Israeli high-tech industry is also the first bank to take part in this unique programme.” The post Israel signs first InnovFin SME Guarantee appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.

Researchers in Spain have found a possible therapy for one of the most aggressive types of lung cancer. The scientists at the Experimental Oncology Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre, part-funded by the European Research Council and the European Union, analysed the gene signature of tumours through large-scale gene analysis techniques. A key barrier in the study of the tumour is their heterogeneity when they reach advanced stages. Lung adenocarcinomas carrying oncogenic KRAS, the engine driving these tumours in 30% of cases, constitute the most aggressive sub-type because, unlike other types of lung cancer, there are no targeted therapies beyond the standard cisplatin-based treatment. Commenting, Chiara Ambrogio, first author of the paper, said: “Classically, tumours have been studied at advanced stages, but we were interested in studying the initial stages of tumour formation. We followed this approach to avoid the heterogeneity issue and try to identify new essential mechanisms that sustain tumour development with potential therapeutic uses. “We discovered that these tumours display high levels of activity of the DDR1 gene, so we decided to validate its inhibition as a potential therapeutic strategy for this type of tumour.” Recent data indicates that combined therapies using two or more drugs can prevent, or at least delay, relapses in the case of cancer patients. Consequently, the experts simultaneously used dasatinib, which inhibits the DDR1 protein, together with demcizumab, an antiboby inhibiting the Notch pathway that is functionally related to DDR1, in this tumour type. Following five years of research, the experts conclude that the combination of the two drugs has additive effects on tumours, reducing their size, preventing their progression and significantly increasing survival rates. A paper is set to be published in the journal Nature Medicine. The post Possible lung tumour therapy appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.

The city’s Sackville Street has been selected for the site of a new £60m (~€76m) Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre with the possibility of preparations for its construction beginning later this month. The new centre will research further potential uses for the ‘wonder material’ to be added to its already extensive list of applications. Last year saw the opening of the £60m National Graphene Institute (NGI) on Booth Street East. The NGI is considering the development and expansion of its site whilst a third building, the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre, is under proposition. All new buildings will be situated on or near to the University of Manchester’s Oxford Road Campus and city planners and politicians welcome the prospect of investment in the area. Government Chancellor George Osborne said: “Scientific innovation is at the heart of our long term economic plan and this investment shows we are delivering. “Graphene is potentially a game-changer – its properties make it one of the most important commercial scientific breakthroughs in recent memory. It presents tremendous opportunities with the potential to provide thousands of jobs and billions of pounds of further investment. “This new centre, alongside the National Graphene Institute, has put Manchester and the UK in pole position to take advantage of these opportunities and lead the world in this exciting new technology.” UK Government research grants will form part of the funding for the latest building with significant investment also being supplied by Masdar, a Mubadala affiliation located in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The post Manchester set to become UK’s ‘Silicon Valley of graphene’ appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.

Fig. 1: Simplified illustration of a subduction zone portraying a fluid flow driven by pressure variations that triggers earthquakes A key to understanding the processes operating in the outer ‘rigid’ part of the Earth, the lithosphere, is to look at metamorphic rocks exhumed to the Earth’s surface. If properly interpreted, fabrics and microstructures in these rocks provide fundamental constraints on lithospheric evolution. However, ambiguities in the interpretation of complex rock fabrics and microstructures have led to conflicting models for the tectonic development and thermal evolution of the lithosphere. One of the reasons for inaccurate interpretations is a still inappropriate quantification of processes that lead to the rock microstructure development. The project “Interplay between metamorphism and deformation in the Earth’s lithosphere” (2013-2018) is funded by the European Research Council within the ‘starting grant’ scheme and is conducted at the Earth Science Department, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland. This ERC project aims to develop unconventional methods for rock microstructures to improve our understanding of processes in the Earth’s lithosphere. Metamorphism is complex The recrystallisation and phase transformations in solid rocks that occur with changing pressure and temperature within the lithosphere are referred to as metamorphism. Metamorphism imposes first order control on geodynamic processes. In fact, mineral reactions and transformations within the lithosphere, involving deformation, and fluid/melt flow, are responsible for mountain building, volcanic eruptions and triggering earthquakes (Fig. 1). Recent work on mineral reactions and microstructures in metamorphic rocks has focused on forward chemical modelling of phase equilibria and on their description through chemical potential relationships which are believed to control the mass transfer in rocks. Currently, high resolution analytical devices have become more available to the Earth sciences, and reveal the three-dimensional size, shape and distribution of microstructural features down to the nanometre-scale. Interestingly, the smaller the scale considered, the more heterogeneous an apparently uniform rock sample is. This heterogeneity is not only characterised by variation in chemical composition but also in mechanical properties. This needs to be accounted for. During mineral reaction, the overall mechanical state of the rock is very important. The rock strength may control the reaction progress with a certain volumetric change from 0-100%, which may result in the development of stress variation, and therefore pressure variation, on all scales. Such pressure variations in rocks strongly influence the fluid flow through the crust which can, in turn, significantly control the mechanical-chemical coupling rates and mechanisms of various processes in the Earth’s interior. Hence, considering the interplay of metamorphic reaction and mechanical properties is critical for correctly interpreting observations in metamorphic rocks. MADE-IN-EARTH aims The goal of our research is to investigate and interpret the mass transfer in small scale microstructures observed in metamorphic rocks with mechanically maintained pressure variations. These pressure variations are reflected in solid solutions with mechanically induced compositional variations which, contrary to the conventional wisdom, reflect overall chemical equilibrium. However, if such a phenomenon is to be quantified, the classical thermodynamic approach, which was developed for isobaric systems, cannot be applied. Therefore, despite the increasing number of more accurate and very good analytical data from metamorphic rocks, a methodology for quantitative understanding of the new observations is missing. This can lead to the incorrect use of petrology data in constraining geodynamic models. Hence, it is clear that the lack of appropriate explanation of such small scale observations may negatively influence the understanding of large scale processes. The team focus on very small pieces of metamorphic rocks (millimetre down to nanometre scale), for which they develop theoretical methods for the quantification of systems with local pressure variations, and then validate these through numerical models to carefully selected key microstructural observations. This will significantly increase our understanding and allow for a quantitative and physically-based reconstruction of metamorphic processes in general. Why is it important? The development of the new quantification approach opens new horizons in understanding the phase transformations in the Earth’s lithosphere. Furthermore, the new data generated serve as a food for the next generation of geodynamic models as well as for societal aspects. In fact, the explicit formulation of mass transport for natural, complex chemical systems on a small scale will provide insights to problems also relevant in material sciences, e.g. rechargeable batteries, radioactive waste disposal and CO2 storage programmes. Highlights Lucie Tajcmanova is the editor of a special issue on this topic in the Journal of Metamorphic Geology: “Deviations from Lithostatic Pressure during Metamorphism: fact or fiction?”; October 2015. Lucie Tajcmanova Assistant Professor for Metamorphic Petrology ETH Zürich +41 44 632 2977 lucie.tajcmanova@erdw.ethz.ch http://www.petromodelling.ethz.ch/ The post MADE-IN-EARTH appeared first on Horizon 2020 Projects.