The National Centre for Oncological Hadrontherapy (CNAO) offers companies the opportunity to utilise an experimental room to study their products using the proton and carbon ion beam generated by the particle accelerator (synchrotron) used for tumour hadrontherapy.

Aerospace companies have already joined the initiative, identifying electronic boards as a potential target for radiation hardness studies, but further research opportunities could be extended to pre-clinical trials to test drug properties (radiosensitisation and radioresistance).

The Lombardy Life Science Cluster and the Lombardy Aerospace Cluster have therefore organised a site tour of the Centre and a technical discussion with CNAO experts for their SMEs, to explore the opportunities for using the facility.