An international research team coordinated by the University of Trieste's Department of Physics has synthesised a potential bifunctional catalyst, mimicking the functionality of vitamin B12, i.e. one capable of promoting two distinct chemical reactions, each supported by a different oxidation state of the metal. Also known as cobalamin, a molecule to the centre of which is bound a single cobalt atom, vitamin B12 is in fact capable of catalysing different reactions depending on the context. The results of the study, with important application implications in the field of energy storage and transport, have been published in the scientific journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The study involved the collaboration of the Materials Laboratory Institute of the National Research Council (CNR-IOM), Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste and the Laboratory for Surface Nanostructures of EPFL in Switzerland. The activities were funded in the context of the PRIN 2022 and PRIN NRRP projects.

'Energy storage and transport are today's most strategic applications; however, from the point of view of available technologies, they are still far from optimal. Think, for example, of rechargeable batteries and the need to use two separate catalytic agents to support the opposing reactions of oxidation and reduction in reversible charge and discharge processes', explains Erik Vesselli, professor of experimental matter physics at the Department of Physics, University of Trieste. ‘The result we have obtained shows, however, how we can be inspired by nature to create new materials of extreme applicative interest in the field of green energy, i.e. bifunctional catalysts, capable by themselves of promoting different chemical reactions.’

Cobalt is one of the strategic metals in the periodic table, already particularly used in catalysis. Its functionality can be controlled by defining the way it coordinates and calibrating its oxidation state. In nature, vitamin B12 - also known as cobalamin, as it is characterised by a single cobalt atom - in its various forms and through complex mechanisms, is itself able to regulate the oxidation state of this single cobalt atom, thus changing its reactivity and stability.

‘We did the same’, Vesselli continues: ‘That is, we synthesised a matrix of two-dimensional molecules and single cobalt atoms, using a single sheet of graphene as a worktable. By controlling the co-ordination, we were able to modulate the oxidation states of cobalt just as occurs in vitamin B12, and were also able to obtain phases in which several oxidation states are co-present in the material.’

In conclusion, the researchers succeeded in synthesising and characterising a new material whose properties are determined by long-range electronic and magnetic interactions between different reaction centres, i.e. individual cobalt atoms. This was achieved by combining state-of-the-art experimental techniques using laser sources, synchrotron light and microscopy techniques, combined with numerical simulations.

Full study published in Advanced Functional Materials 

Co(III), Co(II), Co(I): Tuning Single Cobalt Metal Atom Oxidation States in a 2D Coordination Network

The University of Trieste today proclaimed 133 new PhDs, the highest number ever, during the Graduation Day ceremony held in the Main Hall of Building A in Piazzale Europa.

The 36th-cycle PhDs, who celebrated their proclamation with the traditional ‘tossing of the academic cap’, registered a further increase in the international presence – one in five is in fact from abroad – and witnessed the perfect gender balance achieved among PhD students. 

‘Graduation Day,’ says Prof. Alessandro Baraldi, Deputy for scientific research and Doctorates at the University of Trieste, ‘does not only celebrate the achievement of an extraordinary milestone for our young researchers, but it is also the moment when the University wishes to express its gratitude to the PhD students, who represent a fundamental part of our research activity. 

It is a recognition,' Baraldi concludes, ’that will culminate on 2nd December, with the awarding of the PhD Innovation Awards in the centenary year.’

The University of Trieste's initiative – an absolute novelty – will celebrate through the awarding of five prizes to young scholars a century of research, excellence, creativity and ingenuity, rewarding innovation in thought, knowledge, research methodologies and technologies.

The guest of honour at Graduation Day was Marco Gori, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Siena, who delivered a lectio magistralis entitled ‘Intelligent Machines that do not Accumulate Data’, in which he proposed a new approach to artificial intelligence and machine learning that is not based on the massive accumulation of data. 

Gori suggested that, as happens in nature, machines can develop cognitive skills through interactions with the environment, thus avoiding the centralisation of large collections of data. This approach would reduce privacy risks and concentration of power.

The project ‘Stelutis Alpinis. The Cosmos from the mountains of Carnia’, named after the Friulan word for the alpine star-shaped flower Edelweiss, is nearing its conclusion. The initiative has been promoted by the University of Trieste to bring public engagement in science together with the enhancement of the mountainous region. Until 19th October, the initiative will offer activities for schools and a public conference at the observatory in Zuglio (Udine), bringing the project’s rich programme of events and achievements to a close.

The project has actively involved the local community and engaged a number of participants, demonstrating how science can contribute to revitalising an area, both culturally and in terms of tourism. Coupled with the ‘Celestial Lights/Terrestrial Roots’ festival, it has offered a varied programme, with art installations, shows and specially designed stargazing routes, enriching the visitors' experience.

During the week of 14th to 18th October, local schools will be the focus of activities. Classes IV and V of the ‘Linussio – Matiz’ Comprehensive Institute of Arta Terme and Paluzza will take part in the creation of an ‘Almanac of the New Poetic Astrophysical School’, under the guidance of artists from the L'Amalgama Collective, with a special contribution from the poet Bruno Tognolini.

The project will culminate on Saturday 19th October with a lecture by the professor of astrophysics at the University of Trieste and scientific lead of the project, Prof. Alexandro Saro, followed by an observational astronomy event which is open to the public.

‘Stelutis Alpinis’ was realised thanks to the support of the University of Trieste, with the Physics Department as lead partner, within the framework of the call for public and social engagement.

The paper ‘The potential of histories as a form of counter-accounting’, published in 2023, has won the prestigious ‘Best 2023 International Scientific Paper’ award by the Italian Society of Professors of Accounting and Business Economics (Società Italiana dei Docenti di Ragioneria e di Economia Aziendale – SIDREA). It was written by Eleonora Masiero, Lecturer and Researcher in Business Economics at UniTS, and Riccardo Stacchezzini and Alessandro Lai, Full Professors at the University of Verona.

This study explores the unconventional accounting activity carried out by the director and accountant of a late 19th-century children's home. The activity challenged dominant discourses and highlighted their weaknesses. The study thus contributes to critical accounting research by revealing the potential of genealogical enquiry as an alternative and meaningful tool for analysing and questioning prevailing assumptions, shedding light on the historical and discursive foundations of controversial issues.

Read the full paper 

The University of Trieste is proud to be a part of the international research team that has discovered a mechanism that could open up new avenues for the treatment of glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive brain tumour. The study, conducted in collaboration between SISSA, IOM-CNR, the University of Trieste, the University Hospital of Udine and GlioGuard S.r.l. and recently published in the journal Molecular Cancer Research, highlights the importance of chloride ion fluxes in the proliferation of tumour cells.

Specifically, the research identified that so-called ‘calcium-dependent chloride channels’ are involved in the regulation of chloride ion fluxes in and out of the cancer cell. These channels act as ‘gates’ and directly influence the division of tumour cells, promoting their proliferation. By using specific substances to block these fluxes, the researchers were able to stop the replication of lab-grown cancer cells, thus identifying a potential target for future therapies.

As part of this project, the group led by Prof. Fabrizia Cesca of the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Trieste studied the effect of specific inhibitors of chlorine channels, such as niflumic acid and carbenoxolone, on cancer cell replication. Experiments have shown that these substances can significantly slow down cell division, paving the way for new therapeutic possibilities for the treatment of glioblastoma.

This research therefore suggests that ionic currents could be an effective target for the development of innovative drugs against glioblastoma. However, given the complexity and heterogeneity of this tumour type, further studies will be needed to verify the effectiveness of such therapies in patients.

The full article is available on the AACR Journals site here.

Researchers from the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Trieste, in collaboration with the Sapienza University of Rome, have discovered that the preference of animal species, both human and non-human, for consonant sounds would be partly physiologically determined. The hypothesis at the origin of the study, conducted on one hundred and thirty hatchling chicks, is that the constituent elements of musical abilities - of humans and animals - have a biological root, shared between species that are also phylogenetically distant, and do not depend solely on culture and musical experience.

‘Previous research by the University of Trieste had already led to the discovery that chicks, like other species, prefer so-called consonant musical intervals. The latter, in fact, are those that most resemble the sound produced by living beings, while the dissonant ones recall the lesser harmony of environmental sounds,’ explains Andrea Ravignani, professor of general psychology at the Department of Human Neuroscience at the Sapienza University of Rome. ‘At the time, we did not know the reasons for this; today, however, we know – thanks to studies conducted together, the University of Trieste and the Sapienza University of Rome - that consonant intervals are produced in acoustic social signals.’

The research was carried out on one hundred and thirty hatchling chicks; once hatched, the chicks – which do not require any parental care, neither to develop their vocal repertoire nor to walk – were reared for four days, in pairs, in rectangular cages at controlled room temperature. 

The following calls were recorded for each chick in soundproof pens: contact calls emitted by the chick when it feels discomfort because, for example, it is separated from the hen, brooding calls emitted in pleasant situations and food calls emitted when the chick identifies a profitable food source. These calls are part of a complex vocal code that chicks develop from hatching to adulthood to communicate their needs to other conspecifics and to express the positive or negative nature of a situation they are experiencing. 

The researchers stimulated the production of each type of call by the chicks by gradually recreating the natural situation associated with each one. Specifically, they recorded: contact calls, leaving the chicks alone in the empty pen after separating them from their rearing mate and the imprinting object; brood calls, placing an imprinting object in the centre of the pen after initial isolation; food calls, placing a dish of food in the centre of the pen after removing the imprinting object.

After analysing the minimum and maximum peaks of the fundamental frequencies and calculating their ratio, the study revealed a prevalence of perfect consonance in all types of calls, confirming the idea that consonant sounds are intrinsically present in animal communication. The only recorded dissonances were found in situations of particular distress, such as isolation contexts.

‘This research could open up promising applications: a chick that emits a sound with a certain frequency is probably indicating a certain type of situation, and we now know that the most harmonious calls are those emitted in the most pleasant situations,’ explains Cinzia Chiandetti, associate professor of psychobiology at the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Trieste. ‘Depending on the dominance of consonances or dissonances, we will be able to understand the emotional status of the animal associated with the context in which it finds itself: we are not so far from being able to imagine devices capable of recording the calls and returning the level of comfort or stress of the animal in front of us, even of chickens that, as the writer Andrew Lawler would say, are the birds that have nurtured civilisation’ concludes the expert.

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Full study published in Biology Letters

Chicks produce consonant, sometimes jazzy, sounds

Gianmarco Maldarelli1,2, Andrea Dissegna1, Andrea Ravignani3,4,5 and Cinzia Chiandetti1

1Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

2Department of Biopsychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr-Universitat

Bochum, Bochum, Germany

3Comparative Bioacoustics Group, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

4Center for Music in the Brain, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

5Department of Human Neurosciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

Recent observations using the Hubble Space Telescope have revealed a surprisingly large number of black holes in the early universe. This research, led by Professor Matthew Hayes of Stockholm University and published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, also involved PhD student Vieri Cammelli of the University of Trieste.

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space telescope launched in 1990 by NASA and the ESA, which continues to provide extraordinary images of the cosmos. One of its most iconic observations, and one of the deepest ever collected in the visible light spectrum, was the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), an image of the universe showing galaxies formed not long after the Big Bang.

Twelve years later, the team of researchers again observed this same area of the universe to identify so-called active galactic nuclei, signs of the presence of accreting black holes. Using variations in the brightness of galaxies, numerous black holes housed within them were discovered, many of which formed during the early stages of the universe.

The discovery aligns with results from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a new instrument that continues to push the boundaries of astronomical observations. The JWST, launched in 2021, is capable of observing even more distant objects and providing new information on the birth and growth of black holes.

Vieri Cammelli, a PhD student at the University of Trieste and co-funded by Chalmers University in Gothenburg, played a key role in the analysis of the data: his research, which will form part of his PhD thesis, represents a significant contribution to the understanding of how supermassive black holes formed in the early stages of cosmic evolution.

To learn more about the research results, you can read Glimmers in the Cosmic Dawn: A Census of the Youngest Supermassive Black Holes by Photometric Variability in The Astrophysical Journal Letters

Simone Kresevic, a PhD student in the Biomedical Engineering group at the Department of Engineering and Architecture, won two prestigious awards at the EU TalentOn 2024, held in Katowice, Poland. His project ‘Breath for Life’ not only won first place in the ‘Prevention and Treatment of Cancer’ category, but further distinguished itself by winning the final Grand Prize in all categories of the competition.

The project proposes an innovative device for the early diagnosis of cancer using a system based on innovative sensor technology and Artificial Intelligence-based analysis. The project stood out in terms of its scientific creativity, feasibility and practical impact. 

The EU TalentOn is a competition promoted by the European Commission as part of the Horizon Europe programme involving young researchers aged between 21 and 35 from all over Europe. Out of more than 1,200 applications, 108 participants were selected, divided into interdisciplinary teams to develop innovative solutions related to the five European Missions: climate change adaptation, cancer prevention and treatment, ocean and water restoration, zero-emission smart cities and sustainable soil management. 

Biomedical Engineering PhD student Francesco Bassi was also selected from our University.

https://eutalenton2024.eu/

https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-research-and-innovation-news/discover-winners-eu-contest-young-scientists-and-eu-talenton-2024-09-13_en

Photo - Simone Kresevic with his two teammates during project preparation

Tiziano Agostini, Professor of General Psychology at the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Trieste, received the prestigious Wolfgang Metzger Prize during the opening ceremony of the 23rd Scientific Conference of the Society for Gestalt Theory and its Applications (GTA), held at the University of Milan-Bicocca. The award was presented to him for the book ‘Showing Time: Continuous Pictorial Narrative and the Adam and Eve Story - In Memory of Alberto Argenton’, of which he is co-author.

The prize, named after the German psychologist Wolfgang Metzger, is awarded to those who have significantly contributed to the research and application of Gestalt Theory. Gestalt is an interdisciplinary approach that sees the human being as an open system in constant interaction with its environment. It focuses on how we perceive the whole of an experience or phenomenon, rather than its individual parts, emphasising the importance of global perceptual structures. In a nutshell, what we perceive is not a sum of elements, but simply a synthesis of reality.

For Professor Agostini, this award represents not only a personal accolade, but also an important achievement for the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Trieste. This is the second time that the Metzger Prize has been awarded to a lecturer at the University of Trieste: the first to receive it was Gaetano Kanizsa, founder of the Experimental Psychology Laboratory in Trieste, together with Riccardo Luccio in 1987.

With the awarding of Tiziano Agostini, the University of Trieste reaffirms its leading role on the international academic scene, continuing its tradition of excellence in research on the psychology of perception and experience..

An international study co-ordinated by the Interdisciplinary Centre of Nanoscience of Marseille, with the collaboration of organisations and research centres of excellence, including the Biology and Nanotechnology Laboratory of the Department of Engineering and Architecture at the University of Trieste, has synthesised a new antibacterial compound that promises to be an excellent candidate for the fight against antibiotic resistance, a growing global public health problem that still causes millions of deaths worldwide.

‘The main threat is posed by the eskape group of bacteria - comprising the genera Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacter species - because they are particularly virulent and resistant to antibiotics introduced with treatment” explains Sabrina Pricl, one of the study's researchers and associate professor of chemical engineering at the Department of Engineering and Architecture at the University of Trieste. “Hence the need to develop new antibacterial agents that, on the one hand, are able to kill bacteria, on the other, are not toxic to the organisms that take them in and, above all, do not induce the appearance of further drug resistance.’

The molecule synthesised by the researchers - an amphiphilic dendrimer called AD1b - proved highly efficient against all Gram-negative bacteria, including drug-resistant strains such as Escherichia coli and Acinetobacter baumannii.

The compound interacts with the bacterium by an innovative mechanism of action: it binds to the phospholipids of the bacterial membrane, such as phosphatidylglycerol and cardiolipin, causing the destruction of the membrane itself and the consequent collapse of cell metabolism, leading to the death of the bacterium, without damaging healthy cells - even in vivo - and minimising the risk of developing new resistance, a problem that otherwise plagues traditional antibiotics.

In preclinical tests, the molecule demonstrated strong antibacterial activity as well as great safety, with very low toxicity and no haemolytic effect - results later confirmed in in vivo tests. Moreover, after thirty days of exposure to the compound, no resistance was observed; on the contrary, a drastic reduction in the bacterial load in infected animals was observed.

‘This molecule could pave the way for safer and more targeted therapies and thus give an impetus to the treatment of resistant infections: together with its efficacy, in fact, the ability to not induce resistance puts it in pole position to be further developed at the clinical translational level’ explains Professor Sabrina Pricl.

Researchers from the University of Trieste worked on the design of the AD1 molecule and took part in the computational study, using molecular dynamics simulations to study the interaction between AD1b and the bacterial membrane, applying advanced methodologies supported by CINECA's supercomputing resources.

The research project was funded with NRRP funds and was supported by ICSC, the National Research Centre in High-Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing.