On the 28th of February, the University-Business Knowledge Transfer Network selected 21 out of 83 projects which will be financed by the  “II PROTOTRANSFER Competition for Market-Oriented Prototypes” within the framework of the INESPO III Project/ University-Business Knowledge Transfer. Region: Central Portugal-Castile and Leon.

The final phase of the competition will take place on the 30th of November and the selected projects will receive the aid they need to crystalize their prototypes and proposed training programmes. The aim of this competition is to encourage knowledge transfer activities through the development of a prototype and its crystallization in order to obtain a product or a process with the potential for being commercialized on the market.

BISITE is working on its project in collaboration with Eduardo Weruaga Prieto, who is the director of the Neuronal Plasticity and Neurorepair Laboratory of the Neurosciences Institute of Castile and Leon. He is currently researching about selective neurodegradation through mother cell transplant form the bone marrow. Experiments are being performed on mice and the results are promising, producing considerable improvement and delaying the progress of neural degradation.

Our researchers contributed to the development of the project by constructing an olfactometer. This device has an odour presentation tube through which a stream of air flows, the air may be filled with different substances that have a specific odorant. This device makes it possible to perform quantitative, robust and credible evaluation of olfactory abilities in laboratory animals. Principally, the aim is to establish the limits of olfactory abilities and the extent to which animals can differentiate between types of odorants.

This is a pioneering research in Spain and its development can help counteract neural degradation and combat a range of neural diseases, including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and the neurological problems experienced by stroke survivors.

We are very proud of the work our group is doing and are grateful to Eduardo Weruaga for his support.

Posted by Juan M. Corchado

Juan Manuel Corchado (15 May 1971, Salamanca, Spain) is Professor at the University of Salamanca. He has been Vice-Rector for Research from 2013 to 2017 and Director of the Science Park of the University of Salamanca. Elected as Dean of the Faculty of Science twice, he holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Salamanca and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of the West of Scotland. He leads the renowned BISITE (Bioinformatics, Intelligent Systems and Educational Technology) Research Group, created in 2000. Director of the IoT Digital Innovation Hub and President of the AIR Institute, J. M. Corchado is also Visiting Professor at the Osaka Institute of Technology since January 2015, Visiting Professor at the Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and Member of the Advisory Group on Online Terrorist Propaganda of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (EUROPOL). J. M. Corchado has been president of the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society, and academic coordinator of the University Institute for Research in Art and Animation Technology at the University of Salamanca, as well as researcher at the Universities of Paisley (UK), Vigo (Spain) and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (UK). He currently combines all his activity with the direction of Master programmes in Security, Digital Animation, Mobile Telephony, Information Systems Management, Internet of Things, Social Media, 3D Design and Printing, Blockchain, Z System, Industry 4.0, Agile Project Management, and Smart Cities & Intelligent Buildings, at the University of Salamanca and his work as editor-in-chief of the journals ADCAIJ (Advances in Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence Journal), OJCST (Oriental Journal of Computer Science and Technology) or Electronics MDPI (Computer Science & Engineering section). J. M. Corchado mainly works on projects related to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, IoT, Fog Computing, Edge Computing, Smart Cities, Smart Grids and Sentiment Analysis. He has recently been included in the board of trustees of the AstraZeneca Foundation, along with other health professionals and researchers recognised for bringing scientific knowledge closer to society.