FISA funds two Polimi projects

Agrifood Protected by Printable Edible Authenticating Label - project aims create a novel agri-food label which is edible, compostable, and implements product security and traceability, all in one. APPEAL will improve agri-food products in terms of anti-counterfeiting with an unprecedented level of security. Coordinator: Prof. Carlo Casari, Department of Energy.

The label has three components, each one having a specific purpose. 

• The first is aimed at the final consumer: in fact, on the label there will be a QR code which, via a normal smartphone, will connect the consumer to a web page containing all the information (origin, processing, conservation, production, etc.) relating to the product. 
• The second component is a fluorescent molecule-based identifier, which will be exploited by any retailer, which can verify the authenticity of the product using an inexpensive ultraviolet light and a smartphone. 
• The third element, based on an active molecule-based identifier, is the component that gives the product the highest level of security, virtually impossible to counterfeit: this last level of security is designed to be used by companies and authorities which need to check the actual production chain with high level of reliability, for example to check for counterfeiting or to withdraw contaminated batches.

Furthermore, through the use of edible and compostable materials, the label developed by APPEAL aims to contribute to the reduction of the environmental impact of agri-food packaging; this is a key goal: the European Commission, in fact, said packaging waste, notably plastic, would continue to rise if no action were taken, increasing emissions of greenhouse gases and so jeopardising the EU's target of net zero emissions by 2050.

A cutting-edge solution for real-time monitoring of hadrontherapy cancer treatment. Coordinator: Carlo Fiorini, Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering.

Hadron Therapy (HT) is rapidly gaining importance for tumor treatments with about one hundred clinical centers operational worldwide. In HT, patients are treated with charged particles, as protons or carbon ions, which deposit their energy in the tissue in a much more localized region (the Bragg Peak – BP) than in conventional radiotherapy with electrons and photons. The intrinsically-localized irradiation capability would require a real-time monitoring of the BP, to verify the correspondence with the treatment plan and to avoid the irradiation of organs at risk. 

The project will develop a real-time range verification system based on the measurement of prompt gamma rays, emitted almost instantaneously after the beam interaction with the patient’s tissues. Although research groups all over the world have explored different detection techniques, with proof-of-concept prototypes, clinical devices and procedures for routinely monitoring the range of therapeutic particle beams in the patient’s body are not yet available. 

To achieve this goal, the project adopts an industrial-oriented approach to realize a complete prototype, from one side including the most advanced technical solutions for gamma-detection, but at the same time engineered and scaled appropriately to successfully demonstrate in a real clinical irradiation scenario the application of an online range verification technique.