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