TRACE: Tracing the origin of food
TRACE aims to improve the health and well-being of European citizens
by delivering improved traceability of food products. The project
will provide consumers with added confidence in the authenticity
of European food through complete traceability along entire fork
to farm food chains. TRACE will develop cost-effective analytical
methods integrated within sector-specific and -generic traceability
systems that will enable the determination and the objective verification
of the origin of food. TRACE will also assess European consumer
perceptions, attitudes, and expectations regarding food production
systems and their ability-to-trace food products, together with,
consumer attitudes to designated origin products, food authenticity
and food fraud. It will develop a "Good Traceability Practice"
guide for food production systems. This project is funded by the
European Commission through the Sixth Framework Programme under
the Food Quality and Safety Priority.
For more information:
http://trace.eu.org/
Nextchrom: Building and Using the Next Generation of Liquid Bio- Analytical Separation Devices
This project started in March 2006 and will continue until 2010. Partners in this IWT-SBO project are G. Desmet (VUB, coordinator), B. Devreese (University of Ghent), P. Sandra (Ric), Y. Vander Heyden (VUB), C. Van Hoof (IMEC), L. Van Ginniken (VITO), H. Gardeniers (MESA, Twente).
Introducing novel high-tech fabrication technologies and manufacturing approaches (photolithographic etching, precision milling, laser ablation, thin layer deposition…) into the field of analytical chemistry, the present project aims at developing the next generation of chromatographic columns and supports for liquid-phase chromatography (LC). This intention is motivated by the general large need for better and faster analytical separations coming, amongst others, from the biological and pharmaceutical research field, from the food and environmental analysis sector and from the polymer industry.
The project will especially focus on "flat substrate" columns with a flat-rectangular cross-section and on the fabrication of perfectly ordered porous support columns with optimized hydrodynamic shape and optimized external porosity.
Separation technology-related miniaturisation and fingerprints in pharmaceutical analysis
This project is funded by the Fund for Scientific Research, and started in January 2007. Promotors of this project are prof. J. Smeyers-Verbeke and prof. Y. Vander Heyden.
In chemical analysis, and more specifically in the pharmaceutical field, using separation techniques, two tendencies are currently growing interest. On the one hand, techniques are being miniaturized, on the other complete chromatograms or electropherograms, instead of individual peaks, are used to extract relevant information. The development and data-analysis of fingerprints can be classified within the latter. With fingerprints, chromatograms or electropherograms are indicated that display an often complex peak pattern that is characteristic for a given (type of) sample. This projects aims to perform investigations on both tendencies in order to achieve, in the ultimate case, fingerprints by means of miniaturized techniques. Both research topics are currently experiencing some problems, and it will be tried to find some solutions within this project. The considered miniaturized techniques are capillary electrochromatography (CEC), pressurized capillary electrochromatography (p-CEC) and CEC on chips (chip-CEC). They are currently characterized by some technological problems situated at the level of column fabrication and -robustness. It is the intention to fabricate within this project more robust columns than those currently available, and to develop some applications on it (fingerprints in the ultimate, most complex situation). Regarding fingerprints, one must have a simple methodology to develop fingerprints containing as much information as possible, while in a second instance the obtained fingerprints must be submitted to proper data-analysis techniques. The latter is dependant on the goals and each time a selection must be made from the extensive collection of potentially applicable chemometric techniques.
Phytochemical and biological studies of Vietnamese Herbal Medicine for the
development of high-value healthcare products
This bilateral project with Vietnam started in October 2006.
Besides the Flemish partner FABI, other partners are Prof. Joelle
Leclercq-Quetin from the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL),
and Prof. Chau van Minh from the Institute of Natural Products
Chemistry at the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology
(VAST).
The objectives of this project are to examine natural
compounds of vegetable origin with interesting biological activities
to be utilised as new drug or in the parapharmaceutic field, e.g.
as non-nutritive and alternative sweeteners, nutraceuticals or
ecological insecticides, more specifically:
- To survey medicinal
plants, folklore medicine and other bioresources in Vietnam.
- To investigate the pharmacological efficacy of selected medicinal
plants and folk medicine in Vietnam using chemical and molecular
biological techniques.
- To develop analytical aspects for quality
control of herbal drugs: proper fingerprints of crude extracts
for identification and quality control purposes, and quantitative
determination of specific active compounds
- To develop healthcare
products and/or lead molecules from Vietnamese plants
Introduction of analytical separation techniques to elucidate viral interactions at molecular level
Two projects are on-going concerning this topic. One is an intra-universitary project with prof. Y. Vander Heyden as promotor and prof. B. Rombaut as co-promotor, which started in January 2007. The second project is a research project funded by the Fund for Scientific Research, which will begin in January 2008.
Using a cell-free system for the production of virus material and capillary electrophoresis as separation technique, it is the intention to study some unsolved issues regarding the structure and replication of picorna viruses, such as the function of some viral proteins, the mechanism of initiation of protein- and RNA-synthesis, and the different steps in the morphogenesis. It should also enable i) to detect subviral particles formed during the replication cycle of picorna viruses (morphogenesis), ii) to study the interactions between the viral genome and subviral particles, which leads to the formation of new virions, iii) to study interactions between viral RNA and cellular proteins, iv) to consider interactions between viral and cellular proteins, v) to monitor interactions between viral RNA and viral proteins with particular attention for the determination of the stoichiometry and affinity of, and finally vi) to find and identify new targets for potential antiviral drugs.
Computer-based design of chemical analysis chips for (bio-)pharmaceutical separations
This is an intra-universitary project between prof. J. Deconinck (ETEC, VUB), prof. G. Desmet (CHIS, VUB) and prof. Y. Vander Heyden (FABI, VUB) and starts in October 2007.
The aim of this project is to develop chemical analysis chips that can be used for analytical separations, using a computer-based design approach. Therefore, three steps will be incorporated:
- Develop a computer-based design of the chips
- Produce the chips and verify their quality by means of experimental work and extended testting
- Use the produced separation chips for applications in pharmaceutical analysis and possibly adapted if this appears to be necessary
Design and application of new stationary phases for (pressurized) capillary electrochromatography
This project, funded by the BOF-BWS, starts in January 2008 and is a bilateral cooperation between Belgium and China with Prof. C Yan (School of Pharmacy, China) and Prof. Y. Vander Heyden (VUB) as project partners.
The project will have the following objectives :
- Designing and application of new stationary phases for capillary electrochromatography
- Application of these synthesized stationary phases for the separation and assay of drugs
- Development of chiral separation methods
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VICIM: Virtual Institute for Chemometrics and Industrial Metrology
The period of this project was from December 2001 till May 2004
The Virtual Institute for Chemometrics and Industrial Metrology,
VICIM BV
is a virtual organisation that promotes cost-effective chemical
measurement practices by making use of modern chemometric approaches
and develops procedures for adequate assessment of the quality
of methods and measurement results.
VICIM brings together experts from different European institutes
with knowledge in a wide-range of chemometric competencies applied
in the fields of pharmaceuticals industry, food & drink industry,
petrochemical industry and environmental issues.
VICIM now offers services in four main lines of activities:
-
Research
-
Training - European schools
-
e-Learning (view our e-learning activities)
-
Website services.
The creation of VICIM was the subject of a European project that
has been financially supported under the EC grant GTC1-2001-43030
For more information:
http://www.vicim.com/
Wine DB: Establishing of a data bank for analytical parameters for wines from third countries
The period of this project was from December 2001 till November 2004
As a result of increasing globalisation, the European Union wine
market is facing growing competition from imports from Third Countries
such as Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia - but also from the
United States, Chile, Argentina, South Africa and Australia. In
this highly competitive market, fair trade and fair prices are
essential to maintain a level playing field for honest wine producers
and to maintain consumer confidence. The presence on the market
of cheaper imports that have not been produced to the same strictly
controlled oenological practices as home products therefore puts
the European wine industry at a severe disadvantage.
This project proposes the collection of data from authentic and
commercial wines from Third Countries and their statistical evaluation
to set standards for the analytical control in terms of wine authenticity
and consumer protection.
The project consortium is composed of official laboratories from
the EU and from Third Countries and a group of University partners
for the statistical treatment. The outcome of the project will be
an overall view on the suitable parameters for wine control measures
in the European Union and Candidate countries. Two participants
from Overseas Countries have been included to provide authentic
samples and to help in getting a representative number of commercial
wines.
Wine DB is a shared-cost RTD project funded under the Fifth Framework
Programme of the European Community, within the Competitive and
Sustainable Growth programme.
For more information: http://www.bgvv.de/cm/220/forschung_eu_wein_db.pdf
COUNTERPHARM: Analytical strategy
to detect infringement of patents or proprietary processes of
pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals
The period of this project was from January 2003 till December 2005.
This research project is focused on the need to develop a solution
to the problem of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and patent protection
to secure the legitimate pharmaceutical industry in Europe. Counterfeit
products may also put the health of the consumer at risk, and therefore
a successful outcome to this project will also ensure greater consumer
protection in the long term.
The project proposes to develop a reliable anti-counterfeiting and
patent protection methodology based on a combination of trace impurity
profiles, isotopic fingerprinting and chemometric classification.
The consortium includes five partners from four countries of the
European Union (France, Belgium, Portugal and United Kingdom) chosen
for their expertise in the field of organic chemistry, analytical
chemistry (isotopic analysis by high resolution NMR) and biotechnology.
Counterpharm is a shared-cost RTD project funded under the Fifth
Framework Programme of the European Community, within the Competitive
and Sustainable Growth programme.
For more information:
http://www.eurofins.com/services/Research_and_Development/counterpharm/
Quantitative structure-retention relationships in the studies
of post-translational modifications in proteomics
This project was a bilateral scientific cooperation with Poland, with Prof. R.
Kaliszan and Prof. B. Walczak as Polish promotors. The period of this
project was from January 2006 till December 2007.