ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

Biomechanical interactions between cells and their environment are essential in almost any biological process, from embryonic development to organ function to diseases. Hence, biomechanical interactions are crucial for health and disease. Examples are hydrodynamic interactions through fluid flow, and forces acting directly on cells. Existing methods to analyze and understand these interactions are limited however, since they do not offer the required combination of precisely controlled flow and accurate applying and sensing of forces. Also, they often lack a physiological environment. A breakthrough in biomechanical analysis is therefore highly needed. We will realize a novel microfluidic platform for biomechanical analysis with unprecedented possibilities of controlling fluid flow and applying and sensing time-dependent forces at subcellular scales in controlled environments. The platform will be uniquely based on bio-inspired magnetic artificial cilia, rather than on conventional microfluidic valves and pumps. Cilia are microscopic hairs ubiquitously present in nature, acting both as actuators and sensors, essential for swimming of microorganisms, transport of dirt out of our airways, and sensing of sound, i.e. they exactly fulfill functions needed in biomechanical analysis. We will develop novel materials and fabrication methods to realize microscopic polymeric artificial cilia, and integrate these in microfluidic devices. Magnetic actuation and optical readout systems complete the platform. We will apply the novel platform to address three fundamental and unresolved biomechanical questions: 1. How do hydrodynamic interactions with actuated cilia steer cellular and particle transport? 2. How do local and dynamic mechanical forces on cells fundamentally influence their motility and differentiation? 3. How do hydrodynamic interactions between cilia steer embryonic development? This unique platform will enable to address many other future biomechanical questions.

3 083 625 €

Start date: 2019-10-01, End date: 2024-09-30

"Summary: the quest for a general functional tensor framework for blind source separation Our overall objective is the development of a general functional framework for solving tensor based blind source separation (BSS) problems in biomedical data fusion, using tensor decompositions (TDs) as basic core. We claim that TDs will allow the extraction of fairly complicated sources of biomedical activity from fairly complicated sets of uni- and multimodal data. The power of the new techniques will be demonstrated for three well-chosen representative biomedical applications for which extensive expertise and fully validated datasets are available in the PI’s team, namely: • Metabolite quantification and brain tumour tissue typing using Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging, • Functional monitoring including seizure detection and polysomnography, • Cognitive brain functioning and seizure zone localization using simultaneous Electroencephalography-functional MR Imaging integration. Solving these challenging problems requires that algorithmic progress is made in several directions: • Algorithms need to be based on multilinear extensions of numerical linear algebra. • New grounds for separation, such as representability in a given function class, need to be explored. • Prior knowledge needs to be exploited via appropriate health relevant constraints. • Biomedical data fusion requires the combination of TDs, coupled via relevant constraints. • Algorithms for TD updating are important for continuous long-term patient monitoring. The algorithms are eventually integrated in an easy-to-use open source software platform that is general enough for use in other BSS applications. Having been involved in biomedical signal processing over a period of 20 years, the PI has a good overview of the field and the opportunities. By working directly at the forefront in close collaboration with the clinical scientists who actually use our software, we can have a huge impact."

2 500 000 €

Start date: 2014-04-01, End date: 2019-03-31

Societies in past and present are regularly confronted with major hazards, which sometimes have disastrous effects. Some societies are successful in preventing these effects and buffering threats, or they recover quickly, while others prove highly vulnerable. Why is this? Increasingly it is clear that disasters are not merely natural events, and also that wealth and technology alone are not adequate to prevent them. Rather, hazards and disasters are social occurrences as well, and they form a tough test for the organizational capacities of a society, both in mitigation and recovery. This project targets a main element of this capacity, namely: the way societies have organized the exchange, allocation and use of resources. It aims to explain why some societies do well in preventing or remedying disasters through these institutional arrangements and others not. In order to do so, this project analyses four key variables: the mix of coordination systems available within that society, its degree of autarky, economic equity and political equality. The recent literature on historical and present-day disasters suggests these factors as possible causes of success or failure of institutional arrangements in their confrontation with hazards, but their discussion remains largely descriptive and they have never been systematically analyzed. This research project offers such a systematic investigation, using rural societies in Western Europe in the period 1300-1800 - with their variety of socio-economic characteristics - as a testing ground. The historical perspective enables us to compare widely differing cases, also over the long run, and to test for the variables chosen, in order to isolate the determining factors in the resilience of different societies. By using the opportunities offered by history in this way, we will increase our insight into the relative performance of societies and gain a better understanding of a critical determinant of human wellbeing.

2 227 326 €

Start date: 2014-03-01, End date: 2019-02-28

"The management of mesoscale dynamics is the missing link in gaining complete control over chemical processes like heterogeneous catalysis. The ability to accurately position nanoscale active elements in cellular mesoscale (nm to µm-range) structures with high symmetrical order is instrumental in streamlining vital molecular or energetic paths. 3D periodicity in the structure that supports active or adsorption sites minimizes spatial variations in mass transport, whereas mesoscale control of the location of these sites gives a route to tuning activity and functionality. The introduction of mesoscale metamaterials expands the on-going trend in chemistry, of more and more dimensionally refined structured elements, a so to speak ""Moore's law in Process Intensification"". The roadmap to higher process efficiency dictates a next, disruptive step in mastering manufacturing control at smaller dimensions. The proposed disruptive technology to realize the required mesoscale features is Additive Manufacturing, which is the only method offering the desired freedom in shape, symmetry and composition. More specifically, this project explores electrospinning methods with precise intra-wire control of the position of active sites and accurately tuneable 3D inter-wire distances. This is seen as the ideal technique to reach the mesoscale material target, as the method is scalable to practical device volumes. The main ingredients of the novel technology are microfluidic networks to line up nanoparticles, before electrospinning them with integrated micromachined nozzles, and depositing them accurately in the form of 3D nanowire networks, using integrated circuit collector electrodes. Flow-through, cellular materials which are highly homogeneous in size and composition, or with intentionally embedded gradients, having features designed at the mesoscale, will be investigated for applications in the fields of heterogeneous catalysis and solar energy capture and conversion."

2 500 000 €

Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31