Il Museo Ostetrico presso il Teatro Anatomico

Il percorso di visita restituisce nuova identità al settecentesco museo ostetrico, annesso al teatro anatomico, illustrando la collezione di terrecotte ostetriche realizzate da Giovan Battista Manfredini per l’insegnamento. Fu Antonio Scarpa a istituire questa cattedra nel 1755 all’Università di Modena e a far realizzare un teatro anatomico, su modello di quello che aveva fatto eseguire nel palazzo del Bo dell’Università di Padova

Verso la sostenibilità urbana e territoriale. Progetto di catalogazione del patrionio culturale modenese.

Presentazione del progetto pilota finalizzato alla definizione di una mappatura ragionata del patrimonio architettonico presente nell'area dei 23 comuni di pertinenza della Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena.Il progetto ha consentito la sperimentazione del Sistema Informativo Generale del Catalogo e ha prodotto una banca dati informatizzata dei beni architettonici di notevole interesse di proprietà pubblica, ecclesiastica o privata sottoposti a tutela in base alla normativa statale o inseriti nei piani territoriali e urbanistici. Una mappatura ragionata del patrimonio architettonico costituisce condizione preliminare per l'elaborazione di interventi di manutenzione, restauro e valorizzazione delle funzioni, intrecciandole con altre tipologie di beni territoriali, materiali e immateriali. Seminario organizzato in collaborazione con la Provincia di Modena e l'Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, Modena 9 maggio 200

Educating to the Scientific Method and Culture in the Italian University Museums

The first Italian University Museums Network, constituted in 2012 for a first project, coordinated by Modena and Reggio Emilia, in 2015 started a second project, approved and financed by the Ministry of the University and Research (Online available from http://www.pomui.unimore.it), dedicated to orient the students to the scientific method and culture. The primary objective was to promote, starting from the historical-scientific and naturalistic heritage of the Network, among the students of the IV and V High School classes, the interest in scientific culture that still suffers not only in our country but worldwide. The Museums of the Network decided not only to propose to look at their scientific instruments and naturalistic specimens or to observe the reproduction of some natural phenomena, but with a hands-on approach for raising awareness, to provide to the students the tools in order to understand the cultural context in which the scientific instruments have been invented or realized, the specimens collected, the phenomena observed for the first time. The museums realized 56 experiential educational paths through the individuation and the sharing of operative methods, the adoption and the use of common languages and tools, with specific attention to the information technologies. These paths are dedicated to three principal themes, biodiversity, color and time, and seven subthemes and are published in the Network web portal (Online available from http://www.retemuseiuniversitari.unimore.it). After this experience, an University Museums Observatory will be useful to help the University Museums to become privileged places of the science communication, laboratories of participation, observatories on the past, present and future and able to promote and develop students’ interests and skills for the scientific culture

Iron in Porphyrias: Friend or Foe?

Iron is a trace element that is important for many vital processes, including oxygen transport, oxidative metabolism, cellular proliferation, and catalytic reactions. Iron supports these functions mainly as part of the heme molecule. Heme synthesis is an eight-step process which, when defective at the level of one of the eight enzymes involved, can cause the development of a group of diseases, either inherited or acquired, called porphyrias. Despite the strict link between iron and heme, the role of iron in the different types of porphyrias, particularly as a risk factor for disease development/progression or as a potential therapeutic target or molecule, is still being debated, since contrasting results have emerged from clinical observations, in vitro studies and animal models. In this review we aim to deepen such aspects by drawing attention to the current evidence on the role of iron in porphyrias and its potential implication. Testing for iron status and its metabolic pathways through blood tests, imaging techniques or genetic studies on patients affected by porphyrias can provide additional diagnostic and prognostic value to the clinical care, leading to a more tailored and effective management

The multimedia technologies and the new realities for knowledge networking and valorisation of scientific cultural heritage. The role of the Italian University Museums network

The framework program about multimedia technologies for the networking and the valorization of scientific cultural heritage in the Italian University Museums among thirteen Italian Universities (Bari, Cagliari, Chieti-Pescara, Ferrara, Florence, Modena and Reggio Emilia, Parma, Perugia, Rome “La Sapienza”, Salento, Naple II, Siena, Tuscia), with the coordination of the University of Modena, has been recently approved and financed by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research. It aims at activating a network that by multimedia technologies wish contribute to knowledge and valorization of cultural heritage through the collaboration of UMAC University Museums and Collections International Committee of ICOM. The final target will be a bilingual web portal realized, on purpose for the project, in an innovative perspective considering the peculiar features of the different University Museums collections, the experience of each, their interdisciplinary characterization and the possible uses in a contemporary historical, social and cultural context. The first step is to monitor the cultural heritage of the thirteen University Museums, in order to complete the already existing databases and align them to catalogue standards released by the Central Institute for Cataloguing and Documentation of the Italian Ministry of the Culture within the General Informative System for Cataloguing SIGECWeb

Re-arrange university collections in historical buildings to strengthen the identity of universities. New projects for the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

University collections can help strengthen the identity of historic Universities through proper restoration not only of the set-up of the historical collections, which are evidences of the progress of research in diff erent disciplines, but also of the historical spaces that housed them, for they represent crucial contexts to rebuild the suggestion of their environments, thanks also to the use of new technologies

Microscopic mechanism of protein cryopreservation in an aqueous solution with trehalose

In order to investigate the cryoprotective mechanism of trehalose on proteins, we use molecular dynamics computer simulations to study the microscopic dynamics of water upon cooling in an aqueous solution of lysozyme and trehalose. We find that the presence of trehalose causes global retardation of the dynamics of water. Comparing aqueous solutions of lysozyme with/without trehalose, we observe that the dynamics of water in the hydration layers close to the protein is dramatically slower when trehalose is present in the system. We also analyze the structure of water and trehalose around the lysozyme and find that the trehalose molecules form a cage surrounding the protein that contains very slow water molecules. We conclude that the transient cage of trehalose molecules that entraps and slows the water molecules prevents the crystallisation of protein hydration water upon cooling.DC, EGS, and HES thank the NSF chemistry Division for support (Grants CHE-1213217, CHE-0911389, and CHE-0908218). PG gratefully acknowledges the computational support reveived by the INFN RM3-GRID at Roma Tre University. (CHE-1213217 - NSF chemistry Division; CHE-0911389 - NSF chemistry Division; CHE-0908218 - NSF chemistry Division)Published versio

Non-HFE Hepatic Iron Overload.

Numerous clinical entities have now been identified to cause pathologic iron accumulation in the liver. Some are well described and have a verified hereditary basis; in others the genetic basis is still speculative, while in several cases nongenetic iron-loading factors are apparent. The non-HFE hemochromatosis syndromes identifies a subgroup of hereditary iron loading disorders that share with classic HFE-hemochromatosis, the autosomal recessive trait, the pathogenic basis (i.e., lack of hepcidin synthesis or activity), and key clinical features. Yet, they are caused by pathogenic mutations in other genes, such as transferrin receptor 2 (TFR2), hepcidin (HAMP), hemojuvelin (HJV), and ferroportin (FPN), and, unlike HFE-hemochromatosis, are not restricted to Caucasians. Ferroportin disease, the most common non-HFE hereditary iron-loading disorder, is caused by a loss of iron export function of FPN resulting in early and preferential iron accumulation in Kupffer cells and macrophages with high ferritin levels and low-to-normal transferrin saturation. This autosomal dominant disorder has milder expressivity than hemochromatosis. Other much rarer genetic disorders are associated with hepatic iron load, but the clinical picture is usually dominated by symptoms and signs due to failure of other organs (e. g., anemia in atransferrinemia or neurologic defects in aceruloplasminemia). Finally, in the context of various necro-inflammatory or disease processes (i.e., chronic viral or metabolic liver diseases), regional or local iron accumulation may occur that aggravates the clinical course of the underlying disease or limits efficacy of therapy

Experiencing agro-biodiversity: a project for an app for the botanical garden of the University of Modena

The botanical garden is here considered as a place to educate the visitors, especially young people and their families, students and teachers, about agro-biodiversity, in order to inform them about landraces that characterised and still characterise the rural territory of Modena through multiple channels, physical and digital, combined in one integrated program. A specific work is intended to concern the botanical garden fruition, through the realisation of educational visit itineraries that add a new virtual dimension to the classical observation of plant species in the botanical garden. The realisation of an app, through the use of the augmented reality, allow to convey information about historical and contemporary diffusion of landraces in the landscape of the Modena area, providing a symbolic context in which young people is stimulated to preserve memory and local identity through a valorisation of diversity, also in cultural terms