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Lado B

The associativism aspect.

Corporate

INESC TEC, in the words of our partners – Statement by Generg, by the voice of Miguel Mateus.

Limelight

"In these two years I have done my best to develop a serious work, always focused on the scientific and methodological rigour". Vítor Mangaravite (LIAAD)

Serious Thinking

"Signs of the times and of the new gods. And poor me, I may be excommunicated, but I just didn't turn myself to the market god nor to the money god.", João Ferreira (CAP)

Gallery of the Uncommon

Since this is the “Gallery of the Uncommon” and believe me, we have many uncommon things to tell, we could write a book about the bizarre requests that INESC TEC’s services receive.

Where are you now?

Every month INESC TEC sends highly qualified individuals into the market...

Jobs 4 the Boys & Girls

In this section, the reader may find reference to public announcements made by INESC TEC offering grants, contracts and other opportunities.

Biptoon

More scenes of how life goes merrily on...

 
 

Screening of antibiotic contamination by mobile devices

Screening of antibiotic contamination by mobile devices

In July, the researchers from INESC TEC’s Centre for Telecommunications and Multimedia (CTM) started the project S-MODE that seeks to find low-cost techniques for in-situ analysis of the antibiotic contamination in waters, aiming at the rapid diagnosis and immediate intervention.

Hélder Oliveira, co-leader of the project and collaborator of CTM, recalls that "the resistance to antibiotics is a matter of concern given its ubiquitous existence and is a threat that may foster the emergence of epidemics”.

Thus, the goal of S-MODE is to "develop analytical methodologies based on the use of smartphones", explains the researcher of INESC TEC. “The target analytes will be concentrated to a membrane solid-phase extraction from water samples, followed by an evaluation of the amount of the retained compound after the addition of a colour-development reagent or by direct analysis of the intrinsic fluorescence through the image analysis”, explains Hélder Oliveira.

The low cost of this methodology (less than one Euro per analysis) should make feasible its field application using a small sample volume. Another important factor is the possibility of "evaluating the environmental antimicrobial resistance through the choice of contaminated sampling sites".

Scheduled to end in 2021 and with a EUR 240 000 budget, the project will offer two applications for smartphones for the implementation of validated analytical procedures aimed to screen two classes of antibiotics: sulfonamides and fluoroquinolones.

In addition to Hélder Oliveira and Sílvia Bessa from CTM, the S-MODE is composed of researchers from the Rede de Química e Tecnologia (REQUIMTE), the Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar (ICBAS) and the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto (FFUP).

This work is financed by the ERDF – European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation - COMPETE 2020 Programme and by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia within project POCI-01-0247-FEDER-031756.

 

The researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC.