The genetic information is present in the cell as DNA, which is the form for storage and propagation to the next generation, and RNA, which is the form used by the cell to decode the instructions contained in its genes. DNA is composed of deoxynucleotides, while RNA is made of ribonucleotides. These two components are specifically recognised, respectively, by DNA polymerases, which use deoxynucleotides to build DNA, and by RNA polymerases, which synthesise RNA using ribonucleotides. DNA ...

Chronic respiratory diseases and allergic diseases have doubled in the last 25 years and living in a urban area is a risk factors for these diseases. Few epidemiological surveys on general population samples estimated changes in prevalence of respiratory symptoms/diseases over a long time interval. A study performed by the Pulmonary Environmental Epidemiology Unit, Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Pisa, along with the Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology, CNR, Palermo, the ...

We are all very proud that Sarah Giacchetti, LM student in Molecular Biology and Genetics, and Marco Roncandor, student in Medicine at the University of Pavia, have won one of the fellowships made available by the Giovanni Armenise-Harvard Foundation in collaboration with CNR, the College Ghislieri, CIBIO / University of Trento, the Scuola Normale and the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa. Both winners are engaged in research work at our institute, Sarah Giacchetti at the Dr. Elena Botta's ...

On October 13th, Dario Fo, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997, died. Others may better illustrate his absolutely original and innovative contributions in the literature and in the performing and visual arts, as well as his passionate commitment to social issues. On our side, we would like to remember the enthusiastic support that he and his wife Franca dedicated to our scientific research, in particular to the project stemming from a collaboration between Giovanni Maga in our Institute and ...

Genomic analysis of longevity offers the potential to illuminate the biology of human aging. In a study, recently published in Nature Communications, a genome-wide association meta-analysis of 606,059 parents' survival, helped discover two regions associated with longevity (HLA-DQA1/DRB1 and LPA). Previous suggestions that APOE, CHRNA3/5, CDKN2A/B, SH2B3 and FOXO3A influence longevity have also been validated. Next, the study shows that giving up smoking, educational attainment, openness to new ...

All'inizio di quest'anno, la Incontinentia Pigmenti Genetic Biobank (IPGB) ha ricevuto l'approvazione per entrare a far parte del network Registry & Biobanking del "Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure" (BBMRI), specifico per malattie rare, uno strumento indispensabile per il progresso delle ricerche sulle malattie genetiche rare. Il BBMRI è una struttura europea che raccoglie tutte le biobanche europee che rispondano a requisiti di qualità del materiale e dei dati ...

As every year, the Institute of Molecular Genetics of CNR organized a conference to commemorate the scientific and human figure of Arturo Falaschi, first Director of the Institute and a great scholar of the mechanisms that govern DNA replication. This event is part of the IGM-CNR contribution to the Course of Doctorate in Genetics, Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Pavia. The Sixth edition of the 'Arturo Falaschi Lecture' will be held by Professor Tomas Lindahl who, along with Paul ...

The real possibility of a revolutionary approach to new-generation antivirals demonstrated by a study of the University of Siena and the Italian CNR. A single drug against all viral infections, capable of hitting the protein that the virus uses to multiply. And this is the goal that will be made possible thanks to a study conducted in collaboration between the University of Siena and the CNR, which has identified new molecules capable of inhibiting the human protein DDX3. The research, ...

Educational attainment is strongly influenced by social and other environmental factors, but genetic factors are estimated to account for at least 20% of the variation across individuals1. Here we report the results of a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for educational attainment that extends our earlier discovery sample1, 2 of 101,069 individuals to 293,723 individuals, and a replication study in an independent sample of 111,349 individuals from the UK Biobank. We identify 74 genome-wide ...

The Microscopy School, in collaboration with the Digital Microscopy Center at "Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli" in Bologna, aims to provide the basic information for the use of the main optical microscopy techniques such as SIM Super Resolution, STORM, STED , TIRF and deconvolution. Super resolution microscopy is one of the most significant developments in imaging in biology since the light microscope was invented. The course is opened to researchers, students and technicians who are interested in ...

The research group of Dr. Claudia Ghigna (Institute of Molecular Genetics of the National Research Council, CNR-IGM of Pavia) supported by the AIRC-Italian Cancer Research Association and in collaboration with the group of Dr. Ugo Cavallaro (IEO of Milan) showed that in the blood vessels of the ovarian tumor, one of the most common causes of death from cancer in the female population between 50 and 69 years, is present a new variant of the L1 protein. This variant (called L1-deltaTM) was ...

AIRC rewards this year two young researchers at the IGM-CNR of Pavia: Elisa Belloni (with a three years fellowship) and Anna Di Matteo (with a one year fellowship). Both researchers are involved in a research project in the group directed by Dr. Claudia Ghigna aimed at identifying the molecular mechanisms driving the development of tumor vasculature, a fundamental process in cancer progression since cancerous cells stimulate the formation of new blood vessels in order to support their growth and ...

Sulla prestigiosa rivista 'Accounts of Chemical Research' è stato recentemente pubblicato da ricercatori dell'Istituto di fisica applicata 'Nello Carrara' del Cnr (Ifac-Cnr), insieme a un collega della National Gallery of Art di Washington, un lavoro di rassegna dedicato ad alcune delle più significative applicazioni dell'imaging iperspettrale su opere policrome di grande pregio storico artistico. La tecnologia dell'imaging iperspettrale rappresenta oggi una delle più avanzate frontiere ...

The so-called Cyber-Physical Convergence is one of the main trends of the research in the Future Internet domain. It argues that the pervasiveness of mobile devices with networking capabilities is fostering a convergence between the physical world and the cyber world, whereby smart objects and humans interact with the cyberspace via sensing, computing and communication, generating huge volumes of data flowing between the two worlds. To address this vision, IIT-CNR researchers focus on several ...

Modern wireless communication systems employ large bandwidth digital modulated signals with very high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) to enhance spectral efficiency and maximize the data rate. However, high PAPR digital modulations schemes are strongly detrimental for the radiofrequency (RF) amplifier that must operate most of the time several dB in back-off with respect to the nominal power and, therefore, with very low efficiency. A common technique to improve the RF high power amplifier ...

With specific reference to production processes, industrial security may be defined as the set of the studies, development and the applications of strategies, policies and operative plans, finalized to prevent, manage and solve adverse behaviors against people, environment and properties, either within or outside the industrial site, and against company resources, which are essential to ensure competitiveness in short or long period. In this perspective, industrial installations can represent ...

In un mondo sempre più globalizzato, gli abiti sono il frutto di un lungo processo produttivo dove origine delle materie prime, luoghi di lavorazione e consumo diventano più lontani tra loro. Così le scelte delle imprese e dei consumatori hanno ricadute economiche, ambientali, sociali ed etiche sempre più complesse e difficili da controllare da parte del singolo attore socioeconomico. In questo panorama, sta lentamente avvenendo quanto si è già verificato per il cibo: si fa strada una ...

The study deals with the friction and wear properties of materials for brake pads. It has been developed in the frame of a research collaboration with ITT Friction Technologies company, who is one of the world leaders in the field of brake pads. The gradual phasing out of asbestos, recognized as carcinogenic materials, pushed pads manufacturers to move away from them, to the purpose to obtain safe components. Such phenomenon resulted in a wide variety of brake pads, each with its peculiar ...

The Institute of Research on Combustion (IRC) is one of the partners of the research project Waste2Fuels 'Sustainable production of next generation biofuels from waste streams' that has been funded under the European Union's research and innovation program Horizon 2020 under the grant agreement no. 654623. The project is coordinated by the Spanish company IRIS Advanced Engineering with the participation of 20 partners from 8 countries, among these the 'Dipartimento di Ingegneria Chimica dei ...

Nonostante il numero e frequenza delle frane e delle inondazioni che colpiscono i nostri territori, e la quantità di informazioni anche reperibili online su eventi di frana e di inondazione, il tema del rischio geo-idrologico resta poco conosciuto per la maggioranza dei cittadini. La mancata conoscenza si riflette sulla scarsa percezione che i cittadini hanno dei rischi geo-idrologici. Una delle cause della poca conoscenza è la modalità con cui i temi del rischio geo-idrologico sono stati ...

Magnetic recording is presently the leading technology for mass data storage. Its dominant role has been reinforced by the success of cloud computing, which requires huge amounts of data to be stored and managed on a multitude of servers. Nonetheless, the hard-disk storage industry is presently at a crossroad as the current magnetic recording technologies are unable to achieve storage densities beyond 1Tbit/in2. Pushing the recording density to the terabit regime requires new storage materials, ...

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) - strips of graphene few tens of nanometers wide - are good candidates for next-generation graphene based electronics. At the Istituto Nanoscienze of CNR (CnrNano) a research focus is dedicated to the study of structural, electronic, optical and vibrational properties of graphene nanoribbons with theoretical approaches that are developed in collaboration with leading experimental research groups. One of the recent results achieved in the field, is the first ...

Quantum electronics is now a mature field of physics in the sense that its basis is well understood, and in that it is a natural playground to develop quantum technology. Despite this tremendous success in both the understanding and harnessing of charge transport, very little is known regarding the quantum properties of heat transport. The COHERENT CALORITRONICS group at CnrNano activity aims at strengthening the understanding of phase-coherent heat transport in mesoscopic superconducting ...

Highlights 2016 (see for details www.SPIN.CNR.it) Superconductivity: Physical Review - R. Citro, P. Marra, A. Braggio. Carbon - R. Fittipaldi, M. Salvato, C. Cirillo, A. Vecchione, C. Attanasio. Physical Review - A. Leo, P. Marra, G. Grimaldi, R. Citro, S. Kawale, E. Bellingeri, C. Ferdeghini, S. Pace, A. Nigro. Scientific Reports - S. Pagano, G. Carapella, P. Sabatino, C. Barone. Topical Review in Superconductor Science and Technology - I. Pallecchi, F. Caglieris, M. ...

Il meccanismo molecolare che controlla la funzionalità dei linfociti T dell'uomo è stato chiarito da una ricerca scientifica condotta dal gruppo del Prof. Giuseppe Matarese del Dipartimento di medicina molecolare e biotecnologie mediche dell'Università di Napoli 'Federico II' in collaborazione con il Laboratorio di proteomica dell'Itb-Cnr e il Laboratorio di immunologia dello Ieos-Cnr. I risultati dello studio sono stati pubblicati sulla prestigiosa rivista Immunity. I linfociti T umani sono ...

The question of the worlwide climate modification, due to the human emissions (i.e. greehnouse gas) is alwais more stringent: Europe consumes more petroleum for transportation than for any other energy use; transportation is responsible for about half of the smog forming pollutants in our cities, for up to 90% of the carbon monoxide, and for more than half of the toxic air pollutants. The need to accelerate the development of the technologies able to reduce the effect of the human activity ...

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The effectiveness, efficiency and quality of judicial systems are cornerstones of democracy and they are of paramount importance for the economic competitiveness of every country, as recently also emphasized by the "EU Justice Agenda for 2020" of the European Commission. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for "research capacity" to improve functioning and performance of justice systems, with a specific interest in efficiency, length of proceedings, quality of decisions, court management, ...

SPIKY (Kreuz et al., 2015) is a graphical user interface written in Matlab which facilitates the analysis of electrophysiological data such as the EEG and neuronal spike trains (sequences of electrical action potentials emitted by neurons). In addition to the standard Peri-Stimulus Time Histogram (PSTH) it contains several time-resolved measures of spike train synchrony which were all developed in our lab: ISI-distance, SPIKE-distance, and SPIKE synchronization. For a given data set SPIKY ...

Diffusion essentially refers to a motion which leads to the spreading of some quantity: density of particles, energy, and so on. It owes its universality to the central limit theorem, according to which che combination of independent, random events has general features not related to the details of the single events. For example, in a standard, diffusive motion the spreading quantity does not vary proportionally to the time, but its variation may double only if time quadruples! If however the ...