Projects

Feeding the continuously growing population is taking its toll on environmental resources. Expanding agricultural lands is not viable anymore as biological diversity and our own living environment suffer. The alternative is to transfer food production – proteins included – into microorganisms cultivated in bioreactors. This allows resource efficient food protein production that follows the principles of circular economy. Furthermore, both plant and animal-based proteins can be produced in microbes. The structures of these proteins can be optimised using cutting-edge molecular biology tools to improve their nutritional value and other properties like stickiness or foaming that are important in food preparation. As a result of this project, a food protein with improved properties is designed and produced in a bioreactor on an experimental scale. The acquired know-how is an important tool for the food industry to develop novel nature-friendly products.

The ENACT (https://enact-eu.net/) strengthens crime prevention and counter-terrorism efforts by supporting cutting-edge technologies like the Drug Hunter Analyzer. Developed by TalTech and the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board, Drug Hunter enables fast and reliable on-site drug detection in oral fluid within minutes. ENACT funding aims to enhance the visibility of Drug Hunter by supporting pilot studies, validation, and dissemination efforts, ensuring its successful adoption in law enforcement and forensic applications.

Astrocytes comprise one of the main cell types in the central nervous system (CNS), and it is now recognized that they have important roles in ensuring proper development and homeostasis of the CNS, with astrocyte dysfunction contributing to all major neurological disorders. Recent studies have shown that these cells undergo dramatic transcriptional changes in response to neuron-derived stimuli. However, what are the astrocyte-specific mechanisms that regulate these changes are still largely unknown. Here, this issue will be tackled using state-of-the art functional genomic approaches to generate a comprehensive map of the astrocyte-specific regulatory elements (with a focus on enhancers) and transcription factors that govern stimuli-induced gene expression changes. This will provide unique and original insights into the mechanisms that control stimuli-induced gene expression in non-neuronal CNS cells, with potential implications for the understanding of several neuropathologies.

Using surface plasmon resonance and calorimetry, the binding of hypertriglyceridemia drug candidates to lipoprotein lipase was tested.

This study aims to explore the chemical composition and variability of Estonian bee pollen across different seasons and potentially different regions. The focus is on analyzing the content of various bioactive compounds, such as antioxidants, amino acids, and volatile compounds, to evaluate the nutritional value and potential of pollen as a functional food.

The project aims at validating the contemplated objectives and operation model of the Copyright Infrastructure Task Force (CITF) at hand of components of the AI and Copyright Use Case, and paving the way for the CITF to potentially become a Use Case Group of the Europeum EDIC, focusing on the interoperability and trustworthiness of rights data exchanged between rightsholders and rights users as well as among rightsholders.

The project aim is to build competencies in digital transformation for higher education institutions in Southeast Asia by developing digital strategic plan, improve the quality of learning and teaching methodologies and pedagogical approaches for digital learning.

SMART-PL is a 3-year project, focused on introducing a model of personalised learning, based on the virtual learning environment of Intellectual Tutoring "Learning with No Limits". Intellectual tutoring is a set of learning tools: SMART online platform for virtual personalised learning and formative student assessment; сo-working centre with equipment for organising hybrid learning, which increases the educational process's efficiency and gives both teachers and students more opportunities.

The general objective of this project is to create an "umbrella architecture" based on existing EBSI services. The architecture builds the basis for the realization of traceability application scenarios. Furthermore, TRACE4EU focuses on engagement with pan-European stakeholders and promotion of recommendations for further development of the EBSI eco-system.

One of the challenges that this demonstration project sought to solve was the robotic production of acoustic panels to reduce the time needed to manufacture these. The demonstration project tested the robotic screwing process for acoustic panels of different configurations, taking into account the different dimensions of the panels, the number of screws to be installed and their installation. This demonstration project linked robotics (UR10 collaborative robot), automation (screw feeder, automatic screwdriver, intelligent jig), AI tools (digital twin workstation, machine vision tools, simulation of robot work trajectory). The solution took into account the company's specific production processes and the requirements for acoustic panel parameters, as well as the possibilities for implementing fully automated production in the company or for deployment in other companies in the sector. Results of the demonstration project: realization of the product assembly operation, development of the assembly cell concept, selection of a suitable robot for the assembly operation, selection of the tools, simulation and testing, data collection, analysis and verification of the results.

The novelty of the demo project is the joint handling of non-form-retaining textile materials and solid frame materials by intelligent and flexible robot/assembly robot stations. The active control method detects the performance of the robot’s working organs and checks the quality assurance data with the real ones. Through the analysis and pattern recognition of the collected data, artificial intelligence must be able to make changes to the drafting process. During testing, data will be collected and algorithms created for artificial intelligence to make decisions.

In the course of this project, the concept and prototype of a device for measuring the shadow line of real 3D objects was created and tested both in a test and real environment. The system is used to prepare the most suitable transport packaging for the safe packaging of the objects in question. At present, the production process contains too much manual labor and the level of automation needs improvement. The created system allows to reduce the volume of manual work and also to increase the quality of work (avoid errors and increase accuracy).