ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

Imagine a technology for powering your smart devices by recovering energy from lights in your office, the random movements of your body while reading these lines or from small changes in temperature when you breathe or go out for a walk. This very technology will provide energy for wireless sensor networks monitoring the air in your city or the structural stability of buildings and large constructions remotely and sustainably, avoiding battery recharging or even replacing them. These are the challenges in micro energy harvesting from (local) ambient sources. Kinetic, thermal and solar energies are ubiquitous at our surroundings under diverse forms, but their relatively low intensity and intermittent availability limit their potential recovery by microscale devices. These restrictions call for multi-source energy harvesters working under two principles: 1) combining different single-source harvesters in one device, or 2) using multifunctional materials capable of simultaneously converting various energy sources into electricity. In 1), efficiency per unit volume can decrease compared to the individual counterparts; in 2), materials as semiconductors, polymeric and oxide ferroelectrics and hybrid perovskites may act as multisource harvesters but huge advances are required to optimize their functionalities and sustainable fabrication at large scale. I propose to fill the gap between these approaches offering an all-in-one solution to multisource energy scavenging, based on the nanoscale design of multifunctional three-dimensional materials. The demonstration of an industrially scalable one-reactor plasma/vacuum method will be crucial to integrate hybrid-scavenging components and to provide 3DScavengers materials with tailored microstructure-enhanced performance. My ultimate goal is to build nanoarchitectures for simultaneous and enhanced individual scavenging applying photovoltaic, piezo- and pyro-electric effects, minimizing the environmental cost of their synthesis

1 498 414 €

Start date: 2020-03-01, End date: 2025-02-28

Poor social experiences with peers, such as peer rejection or peer victimization, and with teachers, such as receiving low support or having conflictual relations with teachers during elementary school impede children’s self- and stress-regulation. The affected self- and stress-regulation places these children at risk of developing similar troublesome relations with teachers and peers after the transition to high school. We propose to develop a serious game named A.L.I.B.I. to help children make a successful transition from elementary school to high school. In A.L.I.B.I. children play in a virtual high school environment. The objective of A.L.I.B.I. is to uncover an alien, who is disguised as a teacher or peer. By engaging in prosocial interactions with teachers and peers, by taking the perspective of others, by learning to overthink multiple response options before acting, and by valuing long term perspectives over short term goals, children will receive clues that will help them to uncover the alien. The advantage of A.L.I.B.I. is that through the use of a virtual school environment, it provides children a realistic yet safe environment to learn and rehearse prosocial behaviors, to prepare them for the new social environment. In addition, A.L.I.B.I. is intuitively attractive for children, through its use of game elements and presentation on a tablet computer. The proposed ERC PoC grant has the goal to (1) develop A.L.I.B.I. into a stand-alone serious game that will be ready for implementation, (2) to test the effectiveness of A.L.I.B.I., (3) to integrate A.L.I.B.I. in ongoing school transition trainings as provided by three school counseling organizations in three regions in The Netherlands, and (4) to develop a marketing strategy for broader Dutch and European implementation.

150 000 €

Start date: 2020-08-01, End date: 2022-01-31

In order to tackle some of the prime societal challenges of this century, science has to urgently provide effective tools addressing the redesign of chemical value chains through the exploitation of novel, bio-based raw materials, and the discovery and implementation of more resource-efficient production platforms. Nature will inevitably play a pivotal role in the imminent transformation of industrial strategies, and the recent bioeconomy approaches can only be regarded as initial step towards a sustainable future. Operating at the interface between chemistry and life sciences, my ABIONYS will fundamentally challenge the widely held distinction separating chemical from biosynthesis, and will deliver the first proof-of-concept where abiotic reactions act as productive puzzle pieces in biosynthetic arrangements. On the basis of our previous ground-breaking discoveries on artificial enzyme functions, I will create a significantly extended toolbox of biocatalysis modules by applying protein-based interpretations of synthetically crucial but non-natural reactions i.e. transformations that are in no way biosynthetically encoded in living organisms. My research will exploit these tools in multi-enzyme cascades for the preparation of complex organic target structures, not only to highlight the great synthetic potential of these approaches, but also to lay the groundwork for in vivo implementations. Eventually, the knowledge gathered from enzyme discovery and cascade design will enable to create an unprecedented class of bioproduction systems, where the genetic incorporation of artificial enzyme functions into recombinant microbial host organisms will yield tailor-made cellular factories. Combining classical organic synthesis strategies with the power of modern biotechnology, ABIONYS is going to transform the way we synthesize complex and functional building blocks by allowing us to encode organic chemistry thinking into living production platforms.

1 995 707 €

Start date: 2020-11-01, End date: 2025-10-31

Multidrug resistance of pathogenic bacteria has become a serious threat to public health. The need to develop novel technologies to combat the evolution of bacterial drug resistance is clearly a matter of public concern and urgency. The consequences of AMR include (i) reducing our ability to treat common infectious, resulting in prolonged illness and a greater risk of complications; (ii) patients remaining infectious for longer due to ineffective treatments, making them more likely to pass infections on to others; (iii) compromising advances in modern medicine (such as organ transplantation or chemotherapy) due to risk of infection; and (iv) increasing economic burden on health care systems, families, and societies. This project aims to assess the commercial viability of an alternative approach to this problem.

150 000 €

Start date: 2019-08-01, End date: 2021-07-31