5 million euros for technological research through the Open Technology programme | NWO (2024)

Co-applicant: Leiden UMC (dr. T. Vu, prof. C. Rasch, dr. T. Goncalves-Ferreira, dr. S. Habraken)

Proton beam therapy is an important treatment for eye cancer, but its accuracy is limited as no 3D images of the tumor can be acquired in treatment position. In this project, scientists from radiology, ophthalmology, radiotherapy and medical physics join forces with different health tech companies to develop a cone-beam CT-scanner for the eyes. This will allow the clinician to image the eye in treatment position, and thereby improve the accuracy of the treatment, saving the vision of patients with eye cancer.

Co-applicant: TU Delft (dr. K. Masania, dr.V. Yaghoubi Nasrabadi), Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (M. Ghandchitehrani, prof. Y. Pei)

Additive Manufacturing (AM) or 3D Printing (3DP) technology is fundamentally transforming the manufacturing processes in various industries. However, the risks associated with less-than-ideal printing conditions pose challenges to ensuring the safe quality of AM parts and affect their strength and consistency. This project seeks to address these issues by developing an advanced vibrational Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) methodology for quality assurance in metal AM. By going beyond the state-of-the-art, we aim to optimise AM benefits, particularly for complex geometries. Insights gained will enhance understanding of AM variability, thus enabling a safer application of metal AM technology.

Co-applicant: Wageningen University & Research (dr. S. D’Adamo)

Promoting human quality of life not only demands rapid pharmaceutical measures for human diseases, but also requires developing novel therapeutics and alternative production and delivery approaches. Virus-like particles (VLPs) are naturally occurring nanoparticles that can be tailored to act as nanocarriers of a diverse range of therapeutic cargoes in medicine. In this project, we will create a universal plug-and-play toolkit comprising several plant virus-derived VLPs for use in biotechnological applications. To explore alternatives for feasible production of the newly developed toolkit, as well to assure its scalability, this project will also establish a microalgae-based bioreactor production system for it.

Co-applicant: TU Delft (dr.S. Vollebregt en prof. P. Sarro)

This project aims to develop a fully-integrated, single-chip, ammonia-humidity-temperature sensor. The chip will contain two porous silicon carbide (SiC) structures as ammonia/humidity sensors, which can be fabricated in a single layer, in one etch step. Silicon carbide is an extremely robust material which will yield high reliability. The SiC structures can be fabricated on standard CMOS using a post-processing step, resulting in a fully integrated device, enabling a low-cost, compact and highly-reliable sensor. The resulting sensor will be capable of operating in harsh environments and for many applications, including processing industry, environmental and farming applications.

Co-applicant: ASTRON (P. Broekema)

Currently, data-intensive scientific applications generally require vast amounts of compute resources to deliver world-leading science. The climate emergency has made it clear that unlimited use of resources (e.g., energy) for scientific discovery is no longer acceptable. Future computing hardware promises to be much more energy efficient, but without better optimized software we cannot reach its full potential. In this project we develop a generic AI-driven co-design methodology, using specialized large language models (like ChatGPT), to effectively generate efficient code for emerging computing hardware. We will validate our methodology with two radio astronomy applications, with sustainability as the key performance indicator.

Co-applicant: Wageningen University & Research (dr.D. Martens), TU Delft (dr.M. Klijn)

Development of biopharmaceutical proteins (e.g. monoclonal antibodies) occurs by protein expression during Upstream Processing (USP) at high concentrations (5-10 g/l) followed by Downstream Processing (DSP) obtaining pure biopharmaceuticals to be used as medicine for patients with diseases like cancer. Currently, these processes use batch-wise operations including many different Unit Operations, being labour intensive, having long processing time and being costly. By integrating USP and DSP using cell Tolerant Radial Affinity Chromatography (cTRAC), harvesting UOs are removed resulting in simple and cost-efficient processing with short lead times, where good product quality is obtained via continuous monitoring using Process Analytical Technologies (PAT).

Co-applicant: Wageningen University & Research (prof. M. Groenen), Leiden UMC (dr. M Giera)

The chicken egg industry faces a major problem. Male chickens do not lay eggs, so they are killed, in their millions, within 24 hours of hatching. This practise raises ethical concerns and is already banned in some EU countries. We will develop an ethical alternative. It will consist of a new test to identify male chicken eggs early in incubation, before the embryo has developed a nervous system. The incubation of the male eggs can then be stopped painlessly. The Dutch company In Ovo, B.V. will implement this new technology in their automated egg-screening system and market it worldwide.