The mission of INCDSB is to achieve excellence in life sciences research by integrating interdisciplinary studies across key areas: 1-biomedicine and health, 2-agriculture, nutrition, and food safety, 3-environment and biodiversity, and 4-circular bioeconomy. It emphasizes a trans-disciplinary approach through four complementary domains: bioanalysis, bioinformatics, biotechnology, and bioproducts, alongside research in extreme environments related to these core areas.
INCDSB’s vision is to collaborate with local and international partners to enhance understanding of life processes and to offer sustainable solutions to challenges in health, nutrition, and environmental issues.
INCDSB aims to contribute to the EU’s objectives achievement on sustainable, knowledge-based development. Through its inter- and trans-disciplinary research activities, INCDSB participates in achieving the EU’s objectives related to: (1) promoting strategic autonomy, by creating key-value chains to accelerate the green transition and focusing technologies and innovation on human needs; (2) the ecosystems and biodiversity restoration; sustainable management of natural resources to ensure food security and a clean and healthy environment; (3) the transition to a sustainable European economy. INCDSB is aiming to support plans and strategies regarding the consumers safety and to protect and preserve the environment and ecosystems services, the development of the entrepreneurial capabilities, and to sustain the local economic potential by creating opportunities to provide jobs, thus contributing to increasing the life quality.
INCDSB has established networks, associations, partnerships and can create a regional collaboration network as a framework.
INCDSB has strong expertise in its research fields due to its human resources and modern infrastructure (https://eeris.eu/ERIO-2000-000R-0174)..)
In our research we aim to capitalize plant and animal products and by-products potential as regenerable resources; new sensors/biosensors with applicability in the food industry; determination/monitoring of pollutants; new membrane technologies with advantages such as high efficiency and low cost in bio-separation and for purification and recovery of valuable compounds from medicinal plants; bioproducts and by-products from the agricultural and food industries; new biomaterials with multiple applications. We are an interdisciplinary team of engineering, biology and chemistry professionals, a team that can provide solutions and technical/scientific approaches tailored to the needs of our partners and/or clients from academia, government agencies, industrial/commercial companies, SMEs etc.
Together, we formulate responses to agricultural, health, food industry and environmental emergencies by developing and validating new techniques for the identification, characterisation, extraction, concentration and stabilisation of bioactive compounds from raw materials, by-products/residues from primary processing, but also for the analysis of compounds that can be used as nutrients, food supplements/cosmetics/beverages and for the determination of target analytes using (bio)sensors.
We have expertise in designing of biocompatible and biodegradable biomaterials based on natural and synthetic polymers, ceramics, bioactive compounds of vegetable origin for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine of different tissues, such as skin, bone, cartilage, peripheral nerves, corneas; development of nanoparticles and nanostructured systems for biomedical applications; development of in vitro experimental models for biomaterial biocompatibility testing and tissue healing process study (anti-inflammatory, anti-aging, antioxidant activity) as an alternative to animal experiments; extraction, purification and analysis of biologically active compounds from animal and plants sources; valorization of animal and vegetable wastes for obtaining products with added value within the circular bioeconomy; development of natural products with applications in agriculture as biopesticides, biofungicides or crop stimulators.Elaboration of methods and analytical protocols for assessment of secondary metabolites, assessment of contaminants/pollutants, elaboration of models supporting understanding of the pathway of action of different types of (bio)active compounds or the faith of nutrients and contaminants on various ecosystems; elaboration of local strategies for environment management and sustainable use of resources thus supporting the reducing of environmental impact are domains defining INCDSB’s expertise. We have competencies and wide experience in development of the (bio)technologies for durable natural resources exploitation - including capitalization of raw-materials, bioproducts, wastes, technical assistance and support of knowledge transfer to ensure efficient implementation of developed technologies towards industrial stakeholders.