University of Twente Researchers Secure ERC Proof of Concept Grants for Innovative Projects

(IN BRIEF) Three researchers from the University of Twente have secured Proof of Concept (PoC) grants from the European Research Council (ERC). Professors Mariëlle Stoelinga, David Fernandez Rivas, and Jeroen Leijten will receive €150,000 each to develop innovative ideas stemming from their previous ERC-funded projects. This milestone brings UT’s total PoC count to 30, positioning the university among Europe’s top entrepreneurial institutions. The projects include advancements in needle-free injections, software tools for risk assessment, and self-feeding live tissues, highlighting UT’s commitment to translating research into practical applications with societal impact.

(PRESS RELEASE) ENSCHEDE, 12-Jul-2024 — /EuropaWire/ — Three researchers from the University of Twente (UT) have been awarded Proof of Concept (PoC) grants by the European Research Council (ERC). Professors Mariëlle Stoelinga, David Fernandez Rivas, and Jeroen Leijten will each receive €150,000 to advance ideas stemming from their previous ERC-funded projects. This milestone brings UT’s total PoC count to 30, reinforcing its position among Europe’s leading entrepreneurial universities.

David Fernandez Rivas, who has received his third PoC, aims to revolutionize drug testing by developing a needle-free injection method through his project, Lab-in-Skin. This innovation seeks to enhance efficiency and reduce environmental impact associated with medical testing procedures.

Mariëlle Stoelinga‘s project, RUBICON, focuses on creating a software tool to improve risk assessment in safety and security decisions, integrating advanced computational models and algorithms developed under her ERC Consolidator Grant.

Jeroen Leijten‘s NutriBone project addresses the challenge of sustaining artificially created tissues by developing a method for self-feeding live tissues using nanoparticle glycogen. This breakthrough could significantly impact biomedical applications, including organ transplantation and drug testing.

The ERC PoC grants support the commercial and societal potential of groundbreaking research, facilitating the transition of scientific discoveries into practical applications. UT’s success highlights its commitment to fostering innovation and research excellence on a global scale.

These projects exemplify UT’s dedication to translating academic research into tangible solutions that benefit society, reinforcing its reputation as a hub of innovation in Europe.

All (UT) winners can be found on the ERC dashboard.

DAVID FERNANDEZ RIVAS: LAB-IN-SKIN

For David Fernandez Rivas, this PoC is already his third , which highlights his expertise in developing impactful technologies.
Fernandez wants his project to contribute to the reduction of animal testing and saving costs in the testing of new drugs. ‘We all need faster ways and methods to test new drugs,’ he says. ‘This grant offers us the unique opportunity to work on a ground-breaking concept that can shorten the time to evaluate medical treatment, as well as reduce environmental pollution.’

Fernandez Rivas has been working on needle-free injections for some time now, which has earned him a lot of (media) attention. He is also the co-founder of a UT spin-off company called FlowBeams.

The idea behind his project is the following. Nearly everyone receives numerous injections in their lives, such as vaccinations or medication that is administered by injection, for example insulin for diabetics. ‘Injecting people with needles carries a number of risks, such as the risk of infections in patients,’ Fernandez Rivas says. ‘There are also risks for healthcare staff. For example, they may accidentally prick themselves instead of the patient. In addition, injecting may be painful and it may damage the skin when people are injected regularly. Moreover, about 20 per cent of the world’s population suffers from fear of the needle.’

With FlowBeams’ technology, this will be a thing of the past. ‘With our technology, the fluid we are going to inject also functions as a needle, which eliminates the need for a metal needle,’ Fernandez Rivas said. With this PoC Grant, the professor is joining several projects: Bubble Gun, which previously received another large European grant, and projects from two previous PoCs called BoldJet and Plant-a-Jet. This combination of projects should produce a new tool that is to be tested on artificial human skin (the so-called skin-on-chip technology).

è Read the story of Lee Calladine on UT Stories. He has had diabetes for 25 years, and the routine of injecting insulin is so familiar to him that he stopped being afraid of pricking a hole in his skin a long time ago. Still, the practice of the injections is stressful. Scientists at UT are developing a painless injection method for people such as Calladine.

MARIELLE STOELINGA: RUBICON

Autonomous transport, flying robots and, of course, artificial intelligence: just some of the technologies that will drastically change our lives in the coming years. The huge impact that these will have calls for even better risk assessment. Marielle Stoelinga, professor of risk management for high-tech systems at the University of Twente, previously received a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council in order to develop a new model that will enable an improved and integrated assessment of both safety and security risks when taking decisions. In this project (which is called CAESAR), she has taken important steps to integrate two risks that used to be treated as separate issues: safety (e.g. unintentional accidents) and cybersecurity (e.g. attacks by hackers).

Stoelinga: ‘With the PoC project RUBICON, we are building a software tool that will help improving risk assessment when taking decisions. We are specifically looking at conflicts that arise in the field of safety and security: for instance, leaving your front door open at night may be good for your safety in case there is a fire, but it may be bad for security in case there is a burglary. The RUBICON tool should identify these kinds of trade-offs and weigh their pros and cons against each other.’

Stoelinga mentions some key aspects of the project: ‘Within CAESAR, we have previously developed a language to query risk models. We now want to extend this query language to a larger group of risk models. Furthermore, many parameters in risk models are uncertain. For example, it is difficult to determine exactly what the probability of a ransomware attack is. To gain better grip on such uncertainties, we will use techniques such as fuzzy logic and Bayesian updates. Finally, we will look at powerful algorithms to calculate risk models in order to make good trade-off decisions.’

Mariëlle Stoelinga mainly teaches professionals, such as the Digital Design & Architecture course.

JEROEN LEIJTEN: NUTRIBONE

Creating live tissue is an important tool for many clinical and industrial applications, such as diminishing the waiting lists for donor organs, animal-free drug testing and making animal-free (cultured) meat. As things are standing, however, it is not yet possible to keep large artificially made tissues alive. This is because, like we, living tissues need food to survive and outside the body they do not have access to the nutrients normally provided through the bloodstream. As a result, artificially created tissues will starve and fail. This unresolved issue currently prevents artificially produced tissue from being useful to industrial, clinical and societal use. Jeroen Leijten has developed a unique innovation to solve this important problem: a method to make self-feeding live tissues.

Leijten: ‘The NutriBone project is based on the logical, but previously unexplored premise that these tissues must start providing their own nutrients when their environment cannot. Surprisingly, we have discovered that the nanoparticle glycogen, which occurs naturally, enables the long-term release of relevant amounts of the nutrient glucose. Simply adding this nanoparticle to artificially produced donor organs will ensure their long-term survival, accelerate the formation of new tissue, reduce inflammation, cause milder immune responses, and improve the circulation of blood flow. Because this approach is the first of its kind, we have patented it. With this PoC, we aim to valorise the invention.’

Together with UT scientists Moyo Kruyt, Melvin Gurian and Liliana Moreira Teixeira, Leijten is developing this highly promising example of biomedical nanotechnology into a commercial product. Accelerator Novel-T supports their research.

Leijten: ‘It is amazing that such a simple and logical solution may effectively solve this huge problem. We are excited to start improving patients’ lives with this development. In order to achieve this, we aim to set up a new company soon.’

Jeroen Leijten is a lecturer within the UT programme of Biomedical Engineering.

TOP ENTREPRENEURIAL UNIVERSITY IN EUROPE

Groundbreaking research often generates radically new and innovative ideas that can be marketed successfully and thus generate societal impact. The ERC Proof of Concept grants were created to facilitate exploring the commercial and societal innovation potential of ERC-funded research. This boost allows scientists to take the next step in research previously funded by the ERC. Proof of Concept grants are awarded on the basis of a fixed amount of 150,000 Euros, for a period of 18 months.

For a number of years now, UT has been scoring exceptionally well with ERC Proof of Concept grants. With these new PoCs, the total of grants awarded is thirty. This puts Twente among the top of entrepreneurial universities in Europe, with institutes such as the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford (that both have been awarded a similar amount of PoCs) and the French frontrunner Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique (69 PoCs). In this round, a total of 14 PoCs have been awarded to Dutch institutions. The total number of PoCs awarded now exceeds 2,000.

All (UT) winners can be found on the ERC dashboard.

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SOURCE: University of Twente