In Europe, the future climate predictions point towards a more frequent occurrence of severe, short and very local rain storms. In cities, with dense urbanisation and infrastructure (port, airport, highways, …), this shall lead to more frequent activities disruptions at street level. Insurers already report that weather-related natural threat and catastrophes are rising rapidly. It...
A universal detector for mass spectrometry and molecular science. Mass spectrometry is ubiquitous in science and technology, from medicine and pharmacy over security surveillance to research in chemistry and physics. It requires the preparation, filtering and detection of single molecular ions. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation (MALDI) and electrospray ionisation (ESI) are routinely used in the...
The goal of this proposal is to implement broadband giant refraction (n>10) to achieve a basic building block in what could be termed a white-light photonics, an all-purpose achromatic white-light transducer. The white-light transducer will be able to transfer with maximum efficiency light from any angle of incidence to a photosensitive sensor, irrespective of the...
Vitestro and Result laboratory are developing a device that will automate venous blood sampling. Automation of blood collection offers a great opportunity for improving patient care and reducing costs. A major challenge in development of the venipuncture device is prevention of unintended nerve and arterial puncture, which can be problematic because of anatomical variations. In...
When cutting away sick tissue, surgeons meantime must correctly identify vital anatomical structures such as nerves, lymphatic tissue and blood vessels to prevent accidental damage to these structures. Identifying these to prevent damage remains enormously challenging, especially due to natural differences between individual human bodies. High tech imaging techniques are truly a break through aid...
One of the major radiation modalities for treating cancer is hadron radiotherapy, which at present uses protons and carbon ions. This is mainly because hadrons have the unique feature of increasing energy deposition with penetration depth, with maximum energy deposition at the end of the range followed by a sharp decrease (Bragg peak). However, treatment...
A critical requirement for understanding and diagnosing severe pathologies, such as cancers, neurodegenerative or cardiovascular diseases, consists in achieving an exact understanding of fundamental structures and processes in cells and tissues at optical resolutions beyond the diffraction barrier. Fluorescence based techniques for Super-Resolution Microscopy (SRM) have generated huge impact in many fields of science but...
We live in the information age where we rely on the creation, detection, and distribution of short light pulses forming the Internet. The demand for high data throughput has pushed the speed of laser modulators and detectors close to the 1 ps time limit. However, to reach these speeds, current telecom detectors require at least...
Annually 31.5 million people develop sepsis, a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Approximately 5.3 million people die yearly due to sepsis, among them 420,000 neonates. The majority of epidemiological studies on sepsis, or blood stream infections, focus either on bacteria or fungi and combined analyses are sparse. A global...
The aim of this project is to develop a new x-ray micro computed tomography (micro-CT) technique that will allow performing high-resolution scans with significantly less radiation dose than conventional machines. In the latter, dose generally increases cubically with increasing the spatial resolution; therefore, high-resolution scans require high doses. This means that such scans are not applicable to...
Air quality directly impacts our health and the health of the planet, yet it remains a matter of global and individual concern. Today, 91% of the world’s population live where atmospheric pollution reaches harmful levels and the average global temperature is on the rise, changing the climate in yet unknown ways. Cities are at the...
Optical sensing is a vast and rapidly expanding field, demanding future applications require revolutionary sensors with high detection efficiency, high time resolution, spectral resolution, and statistical analysis of light. There are however no detectors currently available offering all these features simultaneously. In INSPECT we will combine integrated photonics with superconducting detector technology to realise a...
This project is about a new and innovative screening technology called “iSLICE” (immuno Spot Layer Imaging of Cell Excretions) developed by InterFluidics at the Medical Cell BioPhysics group (MCBP) at the University of Twente and applies chip array and 3D-imaging technology. In iSLICE, a relevant panel of different secreted molecules will be detected as cytokines, interleukins, endocrines,...
Positron emission tomography (PET) is used to non-invasively visualise and quantify cellular function and molecular processes in vivo. This enables better clinical decision making and health outcomes. PET is already used in clinical routine, for example in the treatment of cancer. One of the crucial performance parameters of a PET system is its sensitivity. This...
Life is more than the sum of its constituent molecules. It is dependent on the way these molecules interact and cooperate with each other, i.e., the way they are organised in self-sustaining chemical reaction networks. Understanding the general chemical organisation underlying living systems, and even more so the ability to have such systems emerge and evolve...
Diagnosis of epilepsy critically depends on electroencephalography (EEG) machines and specialists trained to manually characterise the acquired brain signals. Clinical-grade EEG machines are immobile, expensive, and rely on dedicated recording rooms where background noise and distractions are minimised and data is stored on servers. Globally, most people with epilepsy live in rural resource-poor areas where these diagnostic...
Nowadays, mammography screening is the most effective tool to fight breast cancer. Still, more than 30% of cancers are not detected, in particular in case of dense breast tissue. Today, X-ray detectors for mammography are optimised for resolution but still lack in sensitivity if compared to angiography systems. Reason is the different technology they rely on. Mammography is...
A challenge in cancer patient care is to monitor the response to treatment. Nowadays, most of the established approaches use tissue staining, which implies their invasive collection through, e.g., biopsies of the primary tumour. Patient follow-up therefore requires serial biopsies, making it very unpleasant for the patient. Alternatively, in vivo imaging approaches using MRI and...
The RAMANTIS project aims to develop a unique system capable of ‘seeing’ the chemical composition of materials and biological tissues. Raman spectroscopy is a ubiquitous technique for material inspection, offering accurate and non-destructive identification of the composition of samples. Raman imaging (RI) applies this technique to extended two-dimensional samples. Current RI systems require scanning times of seconds to even...
Europe is investigating the Einstein Telescope to enhance its research infrastructure. Around 2030 this facility should be operational to image the universe with gravitational waves with a ten-fold improved sensitivity compared to current interferometers. To reach this sensitivity one requires seismic sensor networks to subtract noise caused by direct gravitational coupling of mass density fluctuations to suspended components of...
