EPOS-IASIS (www.epos-iasis.com) is a vibrant nano-biotechnology SME in Cyprus, established in 2006 as the First Prize Winner of the CyEntrepreneurshipCompetition (CyEC). The vision of EPOS-IASIS is to become a long standing reliable partner in health care and establish itself as a leading research, development and education enterprise in the European environment. EPOS has amassed expertise in the translational nanotheranostics, molecular imaging and cell-based technologies, harnessing moleculers and light for faster diagnosis and better prognosis. EPOS has established the only setting for BRET/FRET technology in Cyprus and is considered a regional leader in translational nanotheranostics. In the first 10 years of life, EPOS has co-ordinated numerous national and one major FP7-IAPP grant and has participated as a major partner in FP7 projects, bridging the academic with the entrepreneurial spirit across sectors (NANORESISTANCE, PATHCHOOSER). Recently EPOS partnered to a HORIZON-WIDESPREAD-Teaming I project on Precision Technologies. EPOS has filed internationla patents in theranostics, new CNT-delivery systems for brain tumors and on multifunctional conjugares for metastatic Cancer The strategy of EPOS-IASIS is to partner with other flexible teams through the research and development phases and with well-established pharmaceutical and biomedical engineering firms for the testing, productions and selling of our products.
Recognized as a leading regional nanobiotechnology R&D SME in its field, EPOS collaborates with over 25 organisations worldwide. EPOS’s collaborators range from world-renowned academic institutions, in Europe and the United States, to large industrial partners, government organisations, and small and medium size enterprises that are seeking solutions to translational nanomedicine and molecular oncology problems. For example, the enterprise has strong collaborations with the National Medical and Public Health Services and the Brain Tumour Patient Association, which are supporting its research activities but are also partnering the expertise of EPOS in the establishment of a National Brain Tumour Biobank, paving the way towards advanced molecular therapeutics.
Participating Entities and Major Infrastructure
The EPOS-Iasis R&D pathways scheme, specifically designed with suitable office space for the researchers and the administrative staff, as well as with space for the SME’ various laboratories. The SME’s physical facilities are designed to provide state-of-the-art functionality for research, as well as create a welcoming and stimulating atmosphere that promotes innovation, creativity, learning, teamwork, and professional service, all in an efficient and sustainable manner. They were also designed to ensure flexibility and modularity as research needs and methods change and evolve over time.
EPOS established the first Nanobiotechnology laboratory and Translational Nanomedicine lab in Cyprus, equipped with-state-of-the-art tissue culture and histopathology facilities, including an O2-sensed incubator for cancer stem cell cultures under hypoxia conditions, very important for GSC preparations, centrifuges, protein and nucleic acid analysis systems, advanced cell imaging systems for fluoresence resonance transfer energy (FRET), light microscopes and an inverted fluorescent NIR microscope equipped with CCD digital camera, cryopreservation units, a cryotome and an immunoistochemistry platform. An in-house electrospinning unit, suitable for both mono-axial and co-axial prototypes will proide all required nanomembrane meshes. For functionalisaiton of nanomembrane scafforls, state-of-the art synthetic facilities including inert atmosphere techniques, a modern single crystal CCD X-ray machine, elemental analyzer, luminescence and time resolved luminescence spectrometers, FT-IR, UV-Vis, spectrometers and potentiostats.
EPOS has complete access to Hephaistos MC-Chair of Nanomanufacturing state-of-the-art laboratory facilities including the Micro-& Nano-Systems Lab, Manufacturing Eng. Lab, Advanced Materials Characterization Lab, and Biomedical Eng. Lab. Among related instruments, nanofabrication equipment to be used in this project includes a nanofiber electrospinning system (Gamma High Voltage supply, KDS microdialysis pump, heated magnetic stirrer, Fig. 1), ultrasonic welders (Branson, Stapla), Laser microcutter (Signatone), RP 3D printer, CNC milling station (Haas) and other machining facilities. Analytical infrastructure in this project includes a SEM (Tescan) (AFM/EFM/MFM (Quesant), STM (NanoSurf), white light profilometer (Ambios), FTIR (Jasco) and Raman spectrometers (Ocean Optics), Laser acoustic system (LA Wave), DMA instrument (Triton), EDX microanalysis (PGT), XRD analysis (Rigaku), X-Ray microtomographer (Skyscan). Additionally, for the computational/modelling part of the proposed work, commercial software, including MATLAB, will be used for image processing of the vascular images and visualization of the model predictions. Microsoft Visual Studio will be employed for the development of the model, and the commercial finite element program COMSOL, will be used for further computations. EPOS has access to multi-photon /confocal microscopes. State-of-the-art animal facilities are available to the team in contractual agreement with Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics.
Representative Publications & Projects
Participating Personnel
