Founded as legal entity on 18 November 1923, CNR mission is to perform research in its own Institutes, to promote innovation and competitiveness of the national industrial system, to promote the internationalization of the national research system, to provide technologies and solutions to emerging public and private needs, to advice Government and other public bodies, and to contribute to the qualification of human resources. Five research groups, working in four CNR Institutes (IRIB, IBBR, IBF, ISMN) and belonging to four different Departments (Biomedical Sciences, Bio and Agro-Food, Physics and Materials and Chemical Sciences and Materials), are involved in the project; they have the required expertise and are fully equipped to accomplish the proposed research.

• Participant 2a: The Institute for Biomedical Research and Innovation (IRIB) belongs to the Department of Biomedical Sciences (DSB). It develops research activities related to basic and applied medicine and biological sciences. These activities are pursued through the integration of basic and clinical science aimed at various aspects of the knowledge, such as mechanisms behind the onset of several pathologies (e.g., cancer and inflammation), neuroscience, all framed in a strong statistical-epidemiological framework. CNR-IRIB groups will share with other partners of the project their experience in cellular and molecular biology
• Participant 2b: Institute of Biosciences and BioResources (IBBR), Department of Biology, Agriculture and Food Science, National Research Council (CNR). Research activities of the IBBR aim at the enhancement of basic knowledge in biology and are centred both on the biology of model species and organisms of agricultural and natural interest and on agro-food productions through the sustainable management of bioresources in the biomedical, biochemical, and environmental fields.
• Participant 2c: Institute of Biophysics (IBF), National Research Council (CNR). The research activity of the CNR-IBF group is directed to study the structure and the functional mechanisms of biological systems involved in relevant topics of molecular biology and biochemistry. The group has a longstanding experience in the study of biological systems by physical methods and techniques, including X-ray, Neutron and Light Scattering, absorption and emission spectroscopies, atomic force microscopy and spectroscopy, calorimetry, rheology.
• Participant 2d: Institute for the Study of Nanostructured Materials (CNR-ISMN) will participate to BOW with two main research lines: i) The Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) group, including two laboratories completely devoted to SPM-based research; several of the techniques therein available are routinely applied to the study of soft biological matter, with a particular emphasis on biopolymers and biomolecules, membranes, and cells.

CNR will lead the WP1 and will oversee i) physicochemical characterization of EVs ii) in vitro immunology of evMBDs, iii) in vivo MBDs, EV and evMBD characterization in C. elegans