Imagine intelligent microrobots capable of finding their own path through body tissues. They could enable many revolutionary medical procedures, including targeted drug delivery, long-term monitoring and non-invasive interventions in organs such as brain. They could also allow scientists to study the migration of immune and cancer cells within the human body. ERC grantee Stefano Palagi plans to make this dream a reality, by mimicking features of immune cells.
Microwaves are widely employed in the technologies we use in our daily life - from global navigation systems (like GPS or Galileo), to the satellites used for the weather forecast. They are also important for more ambitious endeavors such as space navigation. The work of Prof. Yanne Chembo has contributed to the next generation of microwaves.
To this day, little is known about sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. Only very few cases have actually been witnessed or monitored. But that might be about to change. Wearable electronics could provide just the solution researchers have been looking for.
Alina Badescu is a young researcher, with her head in the sky and her thoughts firmly buried under layers of rock – in some of her native Romania’s most stunning salt mines. Her work focuses on neutrinos, small subatomic particles that can tell us a lot about the phenomena in the universe: the birth of stars, the explosion of supernovas, black holes.
ERC grantee Dr Kazuya Koyama, originally from Japan, tests gravity, specifically whether Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity can be applied beyond our solar system. At present general relativity works in our galaxy but is less convincing at the far borders of our universe which is rapidly expanding and needs weird energy to explain this. Dr Koyama is hoping that observations in deep space will show that the theory can be modified to work on a larger scale so that this strange 'dark energy' is not needed – removing one of cosmology's biggest mysteries.
On the occasion of the signing of a new agreement with the Japanese Science and Technology Agency to encourage top Japanese researchers to temporarily join ERC-funded teams in Europe, the ERC interviewed Dr Kazuya Koyama about his international career and how he believes this helps strengthen scientific partnerships between researchers in Europe and Japan.
Originally published in May 2015
Updated in July 2018
With an aging population, Europe sees a rapid increase in the number of people affected by visual disorders requiring surgical intervention. Building on the recent advances in robotic assistance in surgery as well as in precisely targeted drug delivery therapies, Prof. Bradley Nelson has designed innovative microrobotics tools to overcome the particular difficulty of manual-performed eye surgery.
Everyone who has ever been stuck in traffic knows how frustrating and time-wasting it can be. ERC grantee Carlos Canudas de Wit is working on a global approach to improve traffic management systems using the new technologies and innovations that have not yet been fully exploited.
The EU-funded HYMAGINE project has combined conventional electronic transistors with new magnetism-based ‘spintronic’ devices to improve information processing speeds and reduce energy consumption.
In an early application of a new discovery in semiconductor physics, EU-funded researchers have developed a silicon infrared detector that is simpler and cheaper than conventional detectors. The ultimate goal is a silicon-based laser.
Imagine your favourite football team entering a stadium. An army of wireless cameras is following the players to give you the best possible view – of the whole pitch, of the chanting crowd, of each footballer, from the tip of his head to the grass blades he treads with his cleats. Thanks to Prof. Leif Oxenløwe’s research, this kind of wireless ultra-high definition television broadcasting can one day become a reality.
