TECHNOLOGIES

BEYOND THE STATE-OF-THE-ART

DARWIN intends to develop high-performance PCR and sequencing methods as well as groundbreaking bioinformatics, coupled with the use of digital technologies and decision support tools.

A more sustainable, reliable, traceable, authentic, and transparent food system is possible thanks to the uptake of:

  • a new generation of innovative detection methods for plant-based products obtained through New Genomic Techniques (NGT)
  • validated pioneering digital solutions.

TECHNOLOGIES IN DETAILS

ANALYTICAL METHODS FOR NGT SCREENING, DETECTION, IDENTIFICATION AND QUANTIFICATION

TARGETED PCR-BASED METHODS

  • Enhanced PCR-system for NGT
  • Triplex real-time PCR for NGT
  • Pentaplex nanoplate digital PCR for NGT

UNTARGETED SEQUENCING-BASED METHODS

  • Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS)
  • Metagenomic sequencing for NGT detection
  • Laser capture Microdissection
  • Combination of methods

BIOINFORMATICS

  • Bioinformatics Workflows
  • Tools and software for processing sequencing data and identifying genetic variations in NGT lines

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES AND GENETIC FINGERPRINTING

DATASPACE AND BLOCKCHAIN TRACEABILITY

  • Distributed heterogeneous database system
  • Data interoperability and data models
  • Data ingestion API (Application Programming Interface) protocols
  • Blockchain for immutability, traceability and transparency in the food value chain

WEB CRAWLING AND TEXT MINING TECHNOLOGIES

  • API crawlers for documentation-based screening in the Web for unauthorized NGTs
  • Text mining to derive high-quality information from websites
  • Machine Learning (ML) to automatically update ontological concepts for GMOs and NGTs

AI MODELS TO IMPROVE COVERAGE OF DETECTION TECHNIQUES

  • Distributed processing/learning of the heavy computational tasks (e.g. DNA sequencing)
  • Computational AI model to determine the identity of an NGT product in a sample

GENOMIC ANALYSIS AND FINGERPRINTING TOOLS

  • Genetic Fingerprinting for combining genetic traits to obtain a unique fingerprint
  • Variant analysis for comparing NGT and parental lines
  • Search Algorithms and AI scripts to identify minimal regions for genetic fingerprinting