The "Centre de Technologies Moléculaires Appliquées (CTMA - Center for Applied Molecular Technologies)" is a mixed academic-clinical-military biotechnological platform mutualizing the resources of three partners:
- UCL/IREC (Université catholique de Louvain/Institut de recherche expérimentale et clinique). CTMA is the IREC-reference biotechnological platform (genetics and molecular genetics); it therefore directly supports IREC-related research activities and teams while also developing proprietary research in the field of technology and security.
- CTMA carries out clinical routine analysis and clinical research in the field of genetics and molecular genetics to support the medical activity of the academic hospital “Cliniques universitaires St Luc” (CUSL).
- MOD (Ministry of Belgian Defence). CTMA hosts several research projects and activities for the MOD to better control the biological risks related to the CBRN (Chimical, Bacteriological, Radiological & Nuclear threats) spectrum. As such, CTMA is the “Biothreat control unit of Defence Laboratory Department (DLD)” and is therefore specifically named DLD-Bio; from there its full acronym CTMA/DLD-Bio.
Our Missions
- Service activities: CTMA/DLD-Bio offers expertise and technological support to UCL researchers and more particularly to IREC-researchers; CTMA has also actively developed service activity for industry such as the fungal biomass production for the preparation of vaccines (the latter activity is located at UCL/CTMA-MYCO premises -Louvain-La-Neuve).
- Dual military-civilian R&D activities: New emerging technologies, including nanotechnologies and operational tools enabling better detection and protection against known and unknown threatening infectious agents; Low/high density gene expression profiling (biomarkers in malignant and inflammatory diseases); Genome characterization by re-sequencing. Related signal processing, machine learning and biostatistical analysis.
- Related expertise in Security: study of Belgian and European preparedness and responses to B-threats of the CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Threats) spectrum; scientific, technical and operational support to Belgian Defense Laboratories (CBRN);
- Clinical activities: Diagnostic applications and operational deliverables (infectious and genetic diseases, pharmacogenomics & new biomarkers, array, pyro-sequencing, quantitative real-time PCR…). Several tests are performed for the benefit of patients at the CUSL;
- Academic courses in Molecular Biology, Genetics, in Statistical Genetics & Multivariate Data Analysis and CBRN topics and Training to Defense units.