Predict S.r.l. is a commercial company specializing in ultrasound and radiological diagnostic imaging systems (GE Healthcare partner). Predict’s goals as lead organization of the cluster concern several areas: the integration of analytical chemistry technology and development of software for analyzing gaseous metabolites in the exhaled breath; creating a ‘breathomica’ database; and prototyping the breath analysis apparatus.

The university participates in the cluster with its Department of Biology, under the supervision of Prof. Gianluigi De Gennaro, and with its Faculty of Medicine, coordinatedby Prof. Donato Francesco Altomare. It is up to this multidisciplinary team at the university to publish, in the most authoritative industry journals, the research that has demonstrated the reliability of the results of the breath analysis in early cancer diagnosis.

Wel.Co.Me. S.r.l. is an academic spin-off founded by teachers and researchers at the Department of Education, Psychology and Communication at the University of Bari. Wel.Co.Me. concerns itself with social planning and undertakes research and evaluation projects for public entities, private companies and training agencies. Within the cluster, the company will define a model for evaluating the effectiveness of using this technology, using questionnaires and evaluation grids.

RetiMeridiane is a consortium of social cooperatives serving the territory and developing social entrepreneurship. It is a widespread network of companies that, within the ‘Inside the Breath’ cluster, will work to promote the project and carry out surveys – involving social-welfare services managed by cooperative societies – with the objective of facilitating the sampling of breath data to be collected and analyzed.