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20 December 2024

BetterBone team celebrates double success at diamond light source

BetterBone team celebrates double success at diamond light source

The CICECO team involved in the BetterBone project, "Metabolite-activated 3D stem cell differentiation into bone," has achieved remarkable success in securing beamtime at the prestigious European synchrotron facility Diamond Light Source.

The proposals submitted in July and September, to study stem cell differentiation using infrared spectroscopy at the nano and microscopic level, have been awarded with 7 days and 5 days of beamtime, respectively.

The July application was awarded 7 days of commissioning beamtime on the newly developed MIRIAM/B22 nano-IR end station. This groundbreaking opportunity will allow researchers to investigate stem cell osteogenic differentiation with unprecedented spatial resolution. Commissioning beamtime, a critical phase in validating new instruments for routine research, demands highly characterized systems and ambitious research goals. The proposal’s Principal Investigator (PI) was Paula Marques from the University of Coimbra.

With a new application in September, the team secured an additional 5 days of beamtime for FPA imaging using micro-IR, leveraging the synchrotron’s high brilliance to study cells under different conditions. The proposal’s PI, Mariela Nolasco of the Computational SpectroscopyLab group and the BetterBone team, received the results from the evaluation panel just this week.

These two successful proposals represent a significant financial support from the Diamond Light Source. With beamtime costs averaging €25,000 per day, the team has effectively received over €300,000 in support, including travel and accommodation for the mission team. Both missions – with team-on-site - will be carried out during the first half of 2025

The BetterBone project, led by Ana Gil from the University of Aveiro and supported by FCT, is a collaboration between CICECO and researchers from the University of Coimbra, led by Paula Marques.

 

More information:

Diamond Light Source.

https://www.diamond.ac.uk/Home.html

 

BetterBone

https://www.ciceco.ua.pt/?tabela=projectosdetail&menu=208&language=eng&projectid=1868

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