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The main topic of the seminar which took place at the Biogem Institute in Ariano Irpino on Friday 14 March was “quinolinic acid as a potential mediator of neurotoxicity in the kidney-brain axis”. The seminar, strongly supported by the scientific director of Biogem, Giovambattista Capasso, and, as always, open also to the external public, focused in particular on the nephrology area, in which the star of Kumar Sharma, director of the Precision Medicine Center at the University of Texas Health in San Antonio (USA), shines bright. The professor, author of over 200 original publications and with over 27.000 citations, illustrated his latest studies on the kidney-brain axis. A central research field in the international CONNECT program, which has seen Biogem as a protagonist in recent years. Hence, the hypothesis of starting a scientific collaboration of the Biogem nephrology area ​ with the group led by Professor Sharma, until now mainly engaged in diabetic nephropathy. This is a sector to which he owes his fame, thanks also to several publications in international journals, such as Science, PNAS, Cell Metabolism, Diabetes, Diabetes Care, JCI, JASN, Kidney lnternational, Cell Metabolism, and Nature Medicine.

Just as an example, the most recent work of Professor Sharma has identified new biomarkers of kidney and heart failure in patients with diabetes and new metabolic therapies that could revolutionize the treatment of diabetic complications.

The project, funded by the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy (MIMIT), concerns, in particular, the development of drug-conjugated antibodies (DCA), to be used for the treatment of oncological diseases with no effective cure. The research and development activities of the DCAs will be led by Professor Claudio Pisano, with a key role assigned to the Protein and Antibody Production Unit of Biogem, directed by Dr. Alessandra Fucci. The project also includes the collaboration of several Italian universities and is based on a multidisciplinary approach. In fact, molecular biology and protein engineering (for the development of high-affinity antibodies) are involved, as well as pharmaceutical chemistry (for the optimization of linkers and cytotoxic drugs). In addition, advanced preclinical models are created to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the product.

<<DCAs – explains Professor Pisano – are one of the most advanced frontiers of modern oncology. By combining the specificity of monoclonal antibodies with the power of cytotoxic drugs, they guarantee a targeted action on tumor cells and minimize side effects on healthy tissues>>. <<The new project launched at Biogem – adds Dr. Fucci – is aimed at developing new-generation DCAs, characterized by a high safety and efficacy profile, to be started in the preclinical and clinical phases>>. <<In this way – finally underlines Alessandra Fucci – we will open new perspectives for the creation of personalized drugs, capable of offering new therapeutic options to patients>>.

There is also Biogem in the Campania tomato defense project (DIPOCA), carried out by a Research Consortium directed by Professor Pasquale Ferranti (Department of Agriculture, University of Naples Federico II), and concerning the development of diagnostic methodologies for the analysis of toxins released by fungi of the Alternaria genus. This project, funded by the Campania Region, includes the work of the group of Dr. Giuseppe Raucci, head of the Bioanalytical Laboratory in the Biogem Test Facility, engaged in studies that measure the negative impact of these tomato pathogens on the quantitative levels of production and, above all, on food safety throughout the production chain. <<Consequently – Raucci himself specifies – the availability of a technology that supports the monitoring of these toxins in a rapid and accurate manner is an important element for the purposes of quality certification and protection, on a commercial level, of this important agri-food sector of Campania>>.

The regional consortium includes both the representative body of producers associated with Confindustria (ANICAV) and some of the most important companies of the sector in Campania. An understandable involvement, given the turnover of the sector in Italy, estimated at over five billion euros (60% generated abroad), with job opportunities for around 25.000 people on a seasonal basis and around 10.000 annually (sources ANICAV and Sole 24 ore). Numbers that place the national tomato industry among the first three in the world, behind the United States and China, despite a context of rapidly increasing competition at all levels.

<<The first phase of the DIPOCA project – Raucci finally says – has already allowed us to verify the Biogem's ability to respond to the needed technological requirements, while the next stages will lead to the codification of a standardized analytical methodology and the long-awaited start of field testing, meaning both a cultivation area and an industrial processing facility>>.

The indian doctor Pratiksha Kavade was selected for the oral presentation of her PhD project in Translational Medicine and, following the presentation, she has been awarded both the prize for the best research reserved to PhD students from abroad, assigned by the examining faculty committee, and the one assigned directly by her fellow PhD students of the Translational Medicine course at the Vanvitelli University. The award ceremony took place on December 17, at the University headquarters in Naples, during the PhD Day, an event of discussion and sharing of knowledge and experiences among PhD students.

Specifically, the awarded research project aims to discover the molecular mechanisms through which the CBX2 gene influences organogenesis in zebrafish, a small freshwater fish, which is an excellent model for such studies. Through the inactivation of the CBX2 transcript, Dr. Kavade was able to demonstrate in vivo how a key epigenetic regulator such as CBX2 specifically controls gene expression during the early stages of development.

The applications of this work, carried out at the Biogem Epigenetics laboratory, directed by professors Lucia Altucci and Vincenzo Carafa, are expected to be far-reaching. In fact, an advancement of knowledge in developmental biology and the identification of congenital disorders linked to dysfunctions of the CBX2 gene are at stake.

<<More generally – outlines professor Altucci – this study could make it possible to improve our understanding of the mechanisms of our body epigenetic regulation, both in good health and in disease>>.

Pratiksha Kavade, who has been daily engaged in the Biogem laboratories for over two years, has had the scientific support of professor Concetta Ambrosino, head of the Genetically Modified Animal and Cellular Models research area, and of the staff of the area that she coordinates. A fundamental contribution that confirms the ‘choral’ value of the main studies carried out in the Ariano research center, increasingly attracting brains from every corner of the world.