Five 20k grants for cross-campus bioengineering research projects

1.    RoboHeart: creating a self-healing ventricle

For severely ill heart failure patients, heart transplantation is the most effective therapy. But given the shortage of donor hearts, many patients have to seek long-term ventricular support while waiting for this intervention. Currently available devices are very impractical and highly prone to severe complications such as blood clotting and bleeding. Therefore, in this Bioengineering Research Project, BEI PIs Aimée Sakes, Mathias Peirlinck (both ME/Biomechanical Engineering) and Santiago Garcia (AE/Aerospace Structures and Materials) will design a soft robotic ventricle that emulates the mechanical behavior of the human healthy heart, by smartly embedding soft actuators into a self-healing elastomeric matrix.

Project: RoboHeart: Design and Development of a Self-Healing Soft  Biomimetic Ventricle

BEI PIs: Aimée Sakes, Mathias Peirlinck (both ME/Biomechanical Engineering) and Santiago Garcia (AE/Aerospace Structures and Materials)
 

2.    Fast bioimaging to see what’s going on in cells

Super-resolution (SR) microscopy plays a crucial role in understanding nanometer-scale structures in cells, such as the neuronal cytoskeleton and organelle architecture. This understanding helps us identify cellular dysfunction and develop new diagnostic tools and treatments. However, for all SR microscopy there is a detrimental trade-off between spatial and temporal resolution, which limits our ability to observe dynamic intracellular processes. In their Bioengineering Research Project, BEI PIs Kristin Grußmayer (TNW/Bionanoscience) and Nergis Tömen (EWI/Intelligent Systems) aim to tackle this trade-off by combining super-resolution microscopy methods and event-based cameras with ultra-high temporal resolution.

Project: Speeding up Super-Resolution Microscopy using Event-Based Cameras for fast Bioimaging

BEI PIs: Kristin Grußmayer (TNW/Bionanoscience) and Nergis Tömen (EWI/Intelligent Systems)
 

3.    Waste-to-lane: circular materials for roads 

The demand for roads is rapidly increasing, with an additional 4.7 million kilometres expected by 2050. While fossil-based asphalt has excellent properties, it also presents significant challenges, including resource depletion, supply-demand imbalances, and a substantial carbon footprint during material production and construction. To address these issues, BEI PIs Luis Cutz (ME/Process & Energy) and Aikaterini Varveri (CiTG/Engineering Structures) will focus on developing circular alternatives. Their research looks into how waste can be turned into asphalt using the next-generation of biomass to bio-oil and biochar technologies. This will provide a high-value, low-emissions option to fossil-based asphalt, which will help the asphalt industry move toward a low-carbon circular economy.

Project: Waste-to-lane: Circular materials for roads

BEI PIs: Luis Cutz (ME/Process & Energy) and Aikaterini Varveri (CiTG/Engineering Structures)
 

4.    Tweaking hydrogels and diamond electrodes for better biosensors 

In their quest to understand cell-cell interactions, researchers often use biosensing devices. Unfortunately, these devices don’t always work as intended: for example the wrong biomolecules may adsorb to the sensor surface, and bioreceptors can get blocked by the cells. Hydrogel coatings have been added to the devices to overcome these problems, but they still don’t live up to their potential. Aiming to improve the functionality of biosensors, BEI PIs Filipe Arroyo Cardoso (EWI/Microelectronics), Ivan Buijnsters (ME/Precision and Microsystems Engineering) and Baris Kumru (AE/Aerospace Structures & Materials) will employ engineered hydrogels and boron-doped diamond electrodes to develop a biosensing device that mimics the actual functioning of a living cell – the best biosensor ever created. 

Project: Cytomorphic Miniaturized Biosensing Platforms

BEI PIs: Filipe Arroyo Cardoso (EWI/Microelectronics), Ivan Buijnsters (ME/Precision and Microsystems Engineering) and Baris Kumru (AE/Aerospace Structures & Materials)
 

5.    Using aptamers to unveil biomarker dynamics in organs-on-chips

Replicating the microphysical environments of human organs, organ-on-chip devices create new opportunities for medical research. Existing devices can already continuously measure simple biological signals from the cultured tissue, such as oxygen and glucose levels. But in order to use these devices to develop for example personalized immunotherapy, it is important that we can also monitor more complex biomarkers, such as proteins. In this Bioengineering Research Project, BEI PIs Alina Rwei (TNW/ChemE) and Massimo Mastrangeli (EWI/Microelectronics) will study the use of aptamers – short single-stranded oligonucleotides – as biorecognition elements to gain insight into real-time protein dynamics in organs-on-chips.

Project: Unveiling real-time biomarker dynamics in Organ-on-Chip systems with aptamer-based protein biosensors

BEI PIs: Alina Rwei (TNW/Chemical Engineering) and Massimo Mastrangeli (EWI/Microelectronics)