The OASIS Open Innovation Test Bed has launched an Open Call for Democases providing support to companies in the development of lightweight multifunctional products based on aluminium and polymer composites.

Join the second in our series of webinars on 15th September 2020, 1 p.m. CEST.

During this webmeeting, you will learn why and how to apply to this unique opportunity to benefit from the European Commission’s support through the OASIS project.

This webmeeting will provide you information about:

• the Horizon 2020 project OASIS
• the open call for companies and institutions
• the technologies that you can access through the pilot-lines
• the business services provided by OASIS to boost your innovation
• showcases already implemented to give you an impression of what can be achieved on the technological side with the support of the OASIS consortium.

You can register for the event here – LINK

The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), Europe’s flagship laboratory for the life sciences (EMBL) and partners launch the COVID-19 Data Portal that is currently used by 73 000 scientists for vaccine development. This central repository facilitates data sharing and analysis.

The winner city will receive the title of European Capital of Innovation 2020 as well as €1,000,000 to support its innovation activities and to enhance its capacity to connect individuals, public sector, academia, and businesses to deliver societal benefits for its communities. Five runners-up will get €100,000 each.

The European Commission will announce the winner and the runners-up of the European Capital of Innovation 2020 contest at the European Research and Innovation Days taking place on 22-24 September 2020. At the same event, the Commission will award the EU Prize for Women Innovators 2020, the EIC Horizon Prize for Affordable High-Tech for Humanitarian Aid, and the Horizon Impact Award 2020.

More details here

The OASIS Open Innovation Test Bed has launched an Open Call for Democases providing support to companies in the development of lightweight multifunctional products based on aluminium and polymer composites.

Join our webmeeting on 16 July 2020, 1 p.m. CEST.

During this webmeeting, you will learn why and how to apply to this unique opportunity to benefit from the European Commission’s support through the OASIS project.

This webmeeting will provide you information about:

• the Horizon 2020 project OASIS
• the open call for companies and institutions
• the technologies that you can access through the pilot-lines
• the business services provided by OASIS to boost your innovation
• showcases already implemented to give you an impression of what can be achieved on the technological side with the support of the OASIS consortium.

You can register for the event here – LINK

 

The OASIS Open Innovation Test Bed has launched an Open Call for Democases with the objective of providing support to institutions in the development of lightweight multifunctional products based on aluminium and polymer composites. Successful applicants to the OASIS Open Call will get free access to an ecosystem of 12 nanotechnology manufacturing pilot lines, providing nanomaterials, nano-intermediates, nano-enabled products and associated services. The selected applicants will be provided with customized support through a complete set of services integrating technical and business expertise which will enable them to build up sustainable business cases. If interested, please check OASIS’ website, browse through its Catalogue of services, read the conditions of the Call, and eventually apply with your Democase here – LINK.

The Call’s first cut-off date, after which proposals will be evaluated and selected for support, is on 31st January 2021. We strongly encourage all potential applicants to check the feasibility of their ideas prior to submitting their proposals. Please do so by contacting the HelpDesk at helpdesk@project-oasis.eu or by calling this number +420 226 217 422.

The Digital Innovation Hub – SmartEEs has built a digital platform, with catalog showcasing a globally unique and comprehensive list of validated Flexible and Wearable Electronics (FWE) products, prototypes and technical services. Particularly in these days, it is essential to build more agile and European value chains and to integrate already existing products or modules for fast market entry.

Through the catalog, each registered visitor can discover available technology and its use in various application fields. The aim of the catalog is to enable business innovation partnerships for developing novel products or services based on Flexible and Wearable Electronics. Last but not least, the registered offering may be involved in the experiments selected and co-financed by SmartEEs. This is the opportunity for the promotion of your FWE products, prototypes and services!

We invite you to register your organization and to share your capabilities with the SmartEEs community.
Register now by following these steps:
1.         Visit: https://ecosystem.smartees2.eu/
2.         Register in: Organization registry
3.         Wait for confirmation (max 48 hours)
4.         Go to the Marketplace and start adding New Items

Currently, the marketplace offers innovating companies the possibility to explore more than 80 innovative offerings, based on flexible electronics. These innovative technologies correspond to the state-of-the-art applications in Organic Photovoltaics, Flexible Displays, OLED Lighting, Electronics & Components and Integrated Smart Systems. Moreover, the Marketplace offers companies the possibility to consult different products by application domain. Available domains comprise applications for automotive, buildings, consumer electronics, energy, lighting, logistics, medical & pharmaceutical, packaging, graphic arts and textile sectors. The SmartEEs Marketplace is a place to innovate the business of SMEs, Mid-caps and Large companies while scouting for new business opportunities with flexible electronics technologies and to connect supply (ready to integrate products, prototypes, services) & demand (designers, integrators, solution providers, vendors), and to facilitate the promotion of innovative products.

See you in the marketplace where we display the best examples of what is possible with Flexible and Wearable Electronics Technologies.
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Perhaps Medical Devices cannot be on the market as fast as light, but we can try to accelerate the process. That is what MedPhab will try to do, being the first European Pilot Line of photonics-based medical devices. Photonics21 published a Press Release about MedPhab on June 22, which highlights the importance in finding better, faster and more reliable ways of developing medical devices.  

Medical devices development process takes normally long time from concept to clinical trials, and for instance to be introduced in the market. This process is not only slow but also significantly expensive. MedPhab aims to cut the costs involved in research and development of medical devices and more specifically diagnostic devices using photonics. MedPhab’s aim is to create easy access for European SMEs, researchers and businesses to a unified infrastructure dedicated to manufacturing, testing, validation and up-scaling of new photonics technologies that are used for medical diagnostics. Photonics being the field of physics that studies, uses and manipulates light is capable of helping the doctors and clinicians to understand diseases with greater specificity and sensitivity without being invasive. Helping its clients to implement cutting-edge photonics technologies into their medical diagnostics products, MedPhab believes it will significantly improve health and patient care. Through the Use Case Validation Program, MedPhab will ensure that the prototypes adhere to the highest medical standards, MedPhab selects companies that are validated with ISO13485 standardised manufacturing. (ISO13485 is the standard for a Quality Management System for the design and manufacture of Medical Devices). Use-case companies will cover both in-vivo and in-vitro domains in order to cover three application areas: hospital use, home care devices and equipment for molecular diagnostics. Moreover, the pilot line focuses on technologies such as Fibre optics, Microfluidics, Surface functionalisation, Instrumentation, Optoelectronic integration, Custom medical patches, Miniaturisation for micromodules and wearables. Medical devices development cannot be as fast as light but MedPhab is lightning a faster path. Read the full press release on MedPhab’s website or Photonics21 website.
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The EC published an evaluation report on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The General Data Protection Regulation is a single set of rules of EU law on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. 

The report shows the GDPR has met most of its objectives, in particular by offering citizens a strong set of enforceable rights and by creating a new European system of governance and enforcement. The GDPR proved to be flexible to support digital solutions in unforeseen circumstances such as the Covid-19 crisis. It also finds that businesses are developing a compliance culture and increasingly use strong data protection as a competitive advantage. Read the full report from the EC on the key findings of the GDPR review HERE.

Fighting climate change and making Europe climate-neutral by 2050 is one of the main priorities of the European Commission. In support of this priority, the Commission is reinforcing Green Deal-related research and innovation with this dedicated call for proposals under the current research and innovation programme – Horizon 2020.

The European Green Deal is our roadmap for making the EU’s economy sustainable and the first climate-neutral continent. Over 35% of Horizon Europe spending will contribute to climate objectives therefore the Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG R&I) invites the research and industrial stakeholders, including RTOs to participate in the recently published broader stakeholder consultation on the Renewed Sustainable Finance Strategy. The Renewed Sustainable Finance Strategy aims to provide the policy tools to ensure the financial system genuinely supports the transition of the industry towards sustainability in a context of recovery. The strategy is an integral part of the European Green Deal and will contribute to the objectives of the European Green Deal Investment Plan, in particular to create an enabling framework for private investors and the public sector to facilitate sustainable investments.

Read initial roadmap of the key policies and measures needed to achieve the European Green Deal here and  take part in stakeholder consultation on the Renewed Sustainable Finance Strategy by providing your feedback  through the online questionnaire by 15 July 2020. 
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AMIRES was selected as one of the 12 finalists out of 121 proposals for EU Datathon. EU Datathon is an annual open data competition organized by the Publications Office of the EU since 2017. The main goal is to stimulate innovation and transform the interaction between citizens and the EU administration. Our idea proceeded to compete in the finals during the European Week of Regions and Cities (12-15 October 2020) in Brussels.
There are four categories according to the challenge to be addressed:

AMIRES team has been tackled challenge number 2- An economy that works for people. As a result, our team consists of John Kennedy Mwangi, Rudolf Fryček, Roman Pašek and Lenka Bajarova will develop new application called EU4Region. EU4Region is a visualisation platform that maps the state of cohesiveness and inclusion of EU regions through funding. It seeks to explore the absorption capacity of EU funding and help identify unknown patterns, causal relations and changes resulting from injection of EU funds in various regions. The AMIRES team’s ambition for this platform is to facilitate evidence-based policy-making by identifying regions that are lagging behind and encourage their participation in future funding programmes.

We are grateful to be part of creating new value for citizens through innovation and promoting the use of open data. Good luck to all teams!
Read more information about EU datathon.
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AMIRES participated in next interactive EPIC Technology Meeting on Biosensors, occured on 11 May 2020 and here are some of the highlights.

One of the key topics discussed was development of various Point-of-care (POC) tests for timely and reliable detection of COVID-19.  Laura Lechuga, the Head of the Nanobiosensors & Bioanalytical Applications at ICN2 presented a solution, which is cheaper POC nanophotonics-based version of the Nucleic Acid Amplification Tests (RT-PCR) laboratory testing. While establishing a manufacturing process of the nanophotonic-based biosensor, some of the highlighted challenges which are quite common for development of biosensors are: packaging and biofunctionalization.  As demonstrated by presentations of industrial partners (Surfix, PIXAPP, LIGENTEC), Europe’s manufacturing base is ready to address such challenge. One of the recent examples of strengthened manufacturing capability of Europe is the MedPhab H2020 funded initiative, which sets up Europe’s first manufacturing pilot line for photonics-based medical diagnostic devices and instruments to accelerate their development and commercialization.

From the technologies, integrated photonics was presented as a key enabler of the progress in biosensor research and development. Surface plasmon resonance imaging (NESPRI) was praised as a reliable sensing technology method. It has been successfully applied also in ULTRAPLACAD project, which recently developed an ULTRAsensitive PLAsmonic device for early Cancer Diagnosis.

For more information on the agenda and presentations click HERE

Breakthrough advancements in Organic Large Area Electronics (OLAE) are ahead of us thanks to the RoLA-FLEX project that has officially kicked-off on 1st May 2020. Although its Kick-off meeting needed to be held remotely via a teleconference (on 6th May), the consortium partners managed to have a fruitful meeting and discuss the plan for the project’s first year.

RoLA–FLEX is an industry driven project led by National Technical University of Athens, which provides innovative solutions to the existing OLAE challenges associated with performance and lifetime, through:

RoLA-FLEX will advance all the aforementioned technologies to at least TRL5 within its timeframe. RoLA-FLEX will create an opportunity for a yearly increase in revenues of almost €400 M only 6 years after its end, accompanied by hundreds of new jobs. A timely investment in the early days of these new markets can ensure significant market share for the SMEs and Industries involved and greatly boost EU’s competitiveness globally.

On May 4^th, 2020 online meeting about “In-vivo imaging” was organized by EPIC who brought up together start-ups, SMEs and research centres, experts in in vivo imaging. In vivo imaging is the visualization of living organisms for research or diagnostic purposes, in these talks the living organisms are the humans.

Ten speakers presented their expertise, interest and role in this topic with application in medical sector. Jussi Hiltunen, MedPhab coordinator, introduced the pilot-line to the audience of this meeting. Not only the speakers which presented their current research and development were participating but also the attendants contributed to the discussions. Mariana Pacheco Blanco, from Amires, as MedPhab partner described the role of AMIRES in MedPhab, and how the company portfolio and expertise in proposal preparation and project management could be of interest for the attendants.

The topics that were discussed and presented ranged from applications in different cancers, surgery, ophthalmology, endoscopy, and even remote education for medical students and trainees. Start-of-the-art technologies of imaging, such as optical components, lasers, fibres, optical coherence tomography, were presented. This meeting incubates future collaborations and partnerships for applications in in vivo imaging.
Link to the video event.

The impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the most fragile countries, migrants and the most vulnerable people is likely to be dramatic. “The virus knows no borders. This global challenge needs strong international cooperation.“ said The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

This means all EU institutions and Member States have to work together as a real Team Europe to provide the effective contribution to the global response. Team Europe approach, aimed at saving lives by providing quick and targeted support to EU partners facing pandemic. It combines resources from the EU, its Member States and financial institutions, in particular the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. From existing external action resources, the EU is mobilising more than €15.6 billion, to:

1. tackle immediate needs, both humanitarian and in the health care sector-  €502 million.
2. strengthen the health, water and sanitation systems of partner countries, and support research- €2.8 billion 
3. address the economic and social consequences- €12.28 billion

The EU will promote a coordinated multilateral response, in partnership with the United Nations, International Financial Institutions, as well as the G7 and the G20.

Download the factsheet on concrete examples of EU support in partner countries

Source:
ttps://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_604
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_20_606
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/fs_20_607

The recently launched H2020 funded project ORGANTRANS which develops a method for controlled organoid transplantation as enabler for regenerative medicine translation has been presented during an online lecture by Dr. Bart Spee of Utrecht University titled “Regenerative Hepatology”, which provide an excellent overview of the state of the field and mentions some pipeline innovations.  ORGANTRANS is presented as one of the emerging innovative approaches. The video is availalbe HERE and ORGANTRANS is mentioned in minute 48:00 – 49:30.
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After 39 months of implementation, InSCOPE project has come to an end. Back in January 2017, 11 partners from 8 European countries joined their forces and knowledge for an ambitious adventure of setting up an InSCOPE Pilot Line for Hybrid TOLAE (H-TOLAE) technologies in the automotive, healthcare, smart packaging and building sectors, and validating its services by 4 Showcases and 15 development cases.

It has been an amazing experience and a true example of successful collaboration across different cultures and borders. A perfect match between technical (TNO, CPI, CEA, VTT, IMEC, Walter Pack / Symbose) and industrial partners (Signify, Bosch, KONE and GSK) backed up by EU project management experts (AMIRES) made it possible to set up the Pilot line and achieve some remarkable results in line with the undertaken commitments with the European Commission.

If you are interested to learn more about our major results with the lighting wall, haptic dashboard, interactive elevator or smart blisters please check here. In addition, you can request here your copy of the InSCOPE Handbook with all relevant information about the project and its Pilot Line.

Event though the InSCOPE project ended, its Pilot Line will continue operating under different settings, one of which is a newly awarded H2020 project called SmartEEs2. Interested SMEs and Mid-caps can apply to the Call for Application Experiments with a topic Support to manufacturing of FWE based end-products including upscaling, and the selected companies will be offered a service by the Pilot Line. All those companies who wish to avoid the application process and just discuss independent collaboration opportunities can simply contact our coordinator Corne Rentrop at corne.rentrop@tno.nl .

A big thank you to all our partners and good luck to all with the new adventures!

SmartEEs2 partners are committed to contributing to the fight against COVID – 19 and other viruses with flexible & wearable electronics as solutions in the field of prevention, diagnostics, therapy, etc. Therfore, SmartEEs2 partners will preferentially support 2 application experiment proposals related to this thematic particularly under the 1st cut-off date of the Call for Application Experiments.

All interested companies are invited to present their ideas by 5th June 2020.

For detailed information about the application process click here.

Good luck to all and keep safe!

Over 30 participants joined the Workshop for Third Party Suppliers offering technology services in the field of flexible & wearable electronics. Originally planned face-to-face workshop at LOPEC 2020 was organized as an online event on 24th March 2020 through the Zoom video conferencing platform provided by AMIRES. SmartEEs2 partners CEA, FhG and AMIRES were happy to present to the invited companies the SmartEEs Community and benefits of becoming it member. Companies had the opportunity to lean more about the project, Financial Support to Third Parties, (FSTP) and evaluation and assignment process of the selected application experiments. Fruitful question and answer session concluded the event with an invitation to companies to stay tuned for further steps in the process of joining the SmartEEs Community.

For more information about the event and presentations, please check the links below:

Recording of the workshop

Presentations

Platinn Coaching, the Western Switzerland Innovation Platform, fosters the innovation capabilities and competitiveness of start-ups and SMEs. Amires’s CEO Rudolf Fryček, is a Platinn cooperation coach and since 2011 he has been helping SMEs to reach their milestones.
 Lately, two SMEs- regenHU and Daphne experienced an effective impact of the coaching that enabled them to complete the development and testing of its system and put new innovative products on the market. The coaching was primarily focused on the evaluation of European public funding opportunities and the establishment of partnerships in order to develop new products.  Both cases succeeded to get funding from the framework of Horizon 2020, the EU financial tool for innovation.

The success stories belong to regenHU and Daphne that have done a huge step towards:

• Regenerative medicine – by replacing diseased tissue with healthy, artificially produced tissue
• Decreasing maritime pollution– by developing a system to purify exhaust thanks to nanotechnology which eliminates up to 99.3% of sulfur oxides and 85% of nitrogen oxides.

Read also:

• https://platinn.ch/2020/daphne-technology-veut-depolluer-les-gaz-dechappement-maritimes/
• https://platinn.ch/2020/le-futur-prometteur-de-la-medecine-regenerative/

SmartEEs2 is an original European acceleration program dedicated to helping innovative companies digitise their businesses thanks to flexible and wearable electronics (FWE) testing, experimentation and manufacturing support. How do we do it? We opened a Call for Application Experiments on 6 March 2020 and set 5 cut – off dates between June 2020 and August 2021 for the evaluation and selection of submitted proposals. All interested companies, satisfying the criteria, are invited to submit their application experiment proposals.

All applicants to the SmartEEs2 program will get access to FWE and manufacturing technologies as listed in the Marketplace to integrate advanced features / functions inside new products and / or to make a series of products.

The winners of the Call will benefit from SmartEEs unique ecosystem composed of leading research organizations, a number of innovative technology suppliers, recognized experts in business development and investors.

The selected Innovative Companies will be provided customized support through a complete set of services integrating technical, business, ecosystem expertise which will enable them to build up sustainable business cases.

Check out our Call for Application Experiments (AEs) at www.smartees.eu and do not wait too long to apply! And good luck to all applicants!

This award is the European Commission’s initiative to recognize and celebrate outstanding projects that have used their results to provide value for society. These projects must have been funded by FP7 and/or Horizon 2020 funding programmes and they must be closed by the time of application.

Coordinators, Project teams take the chance to win The Horizon Impact Award (Five prizes of 10,000 EUR will be awarded) showcase your best practices and achievements from your project for these reasons:

• You can inspire beneficiaries of research and innovation funding to maximize the impact of their research.
• You will show the wider socio-economic benefits of EU investment in research and innovation.
• The Horizon Impact Award will provide the winners with high visibility in the form of public interest and increased media coverage.

Last year winners came up with a new drug for a rare disease, helped prevent child abuse, increased security of browsing the web and protected coastal areas against the effects of climate change.

Closing date for submission is on 2 April 2020. More information on the criteria HERE.

The goal to boost R&D spending to 3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in all member states up to 2020 has not been achieved.
In 2018, EU member states – UK not included – invested on average 2.19 per cent of their GDP on R&D, amounting to total figure of €295 billion. 
An analysis by European Commission officials estimates the EU needs to add in an extra €109 billion per year to reach the goal of spending at least 3 per cent of GDP on research and development.

More information HERE

Discussions on Horizon Europe implementation are progressing – here are some of the important milestones that have been achieved. 

Besides the 16 EU neighbours already in the existing programme,the Commission is dicussing Horizon membership with six other non-EU countries: Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea. The commission is proposing that non-EU countries, including longstanding partners like Switzerland and Israel, get out of Horizon only as much money as they commit to it, a change from the prior formula that saw some countries ending up with more or less money than they contributed. The draft Horizon legislation, which EU member state officials are due to start discussing on 10 February, also requires that Horizon partners share the same democratic values – a veto to China – and provide reciprocal access for EU researchers in their own national programmes.

However as the commission gets ready for formal Horizon negotiations with non-EU countries,  the transatlantic contractual disagreement has grown into a bigger issue.

Constance C. Arvis, director of the US State Department’s Office of Science and Technology expressed “concern” about EU-US cooperation.
“If they (the terms) are finalised in the path that we think they may be, that means that for seven years we are going to have to interact with a structure that is fundamentally not going to incentivise science across the Atlantic. And we think that is a very unnecessary and undesirable outcome,” Arvis said.

In her statement, Arvis said

• the budgetary terms are “not an incentive to associate” – the legal term for a country formally joining the programme.
• The proposed terms also don’t allow an international associate any oversight. “In other words, we can pay in, but we don’t get to decide how it’s used,”
• In addition, the terms would allow the commission “unilaterally to exclude” associated third countries from elements of the programme.

Read the full text Constance C. Arvis, director for science and technology cooperation at the US State Department, delivered Here

More information:here

 

Are you an SME or a Mid-cap?

Are you interested in integrating flexible and wearable electronics to diversify your activity and develop new products / series of products?

Do you have an idea, but need technologies, expertise and resources?

We have a solution!

Stay tuned and follow us on website and social media  @SmartEEsEU to learn about new opportunities offered by the SmartEEs Community you could benefit from! New Call for AEs opening soon!

The FET-OPEN project POSEIDON had its kick-off meeting on January, 23-24, 2020 in Aachen, in the facilities of AMO GmbH. POSEIDON is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, which aims at developing a radically new bottom-up approach for integrated light sources for silicon photonics.
“We will tear down the massive costs and complexity barriers of current top-down approaches for fabricating photonic integrated circuits”, says the project coordinator Anna Lena Giesecke from AMO GmbH. “The idea is to integrate light sources directly into the photonic circuits by exploiting the self-assembly of active colloids on chips. In this way, we will be able to realize cheap and yet very powerful optical devices, with a very broad range of applications, from data centers to medical sensors.”  
If the range of potential applications is broad, the project target explicitly the usual wavelengths of data-communications, with the goal of realizing cheap and efficient optical switches to drastically improve the energy efficiency of data-centers and network performance. The project itself is extremely exciting from the scientific and the technological point of view, as it requires developing a multi-scale approach to design and control the self-assembly of the colloids with nanometer-scale resolution in all three spatial directions directly on photonic integrated circuit. 
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The project involves eight partners, which represent the top EU innovation-performers in modelling and simulation, colloid synthesis, hierarchical assembly, development of electrically pumped colloidal light sources and fabrication of photonic integrated circuits. POSEIDON is also endorsed by key innovation players (IBM, Hitachi, Mellanox, Causeway Sensors, Senseair), which are involved in defining the target specifications and impact monitoring of the new technology.  More information on the project can be found at https://poseidon-fet.eu/ (full version available in March 2020).

Contact persons:	Coordinator:	Project Manager:
Name	Dr. Anna Lena Giesecke	Kristina Pandek
Organisation	AMO GmbH	AMIRES s.r.o.
Email	giesecke@amo.de	pandek@amires.eu

POSEIDON project has a duration of 48 months. Keep tuned on the upcoming project results!

Watch the video we’ve created together with Small Data Garden within the SmartEEs project to see what kind of solutions it brings to life.

IOTSU Flexi is a flexible, plaster-like node that enables remote monitoring of assets and measurement of various parameters for a wide range of applications. The capability to measure acceleration, orientation, position, temperature and moisture levels makes it perfect for applications ranging from medicine and sport to premium parcel services and cold-chain management. The option to extend this solution with other sensors makes the breadth of use case scenarios practically limitless.

The three-way cooperation between Small Data Garden, VTT as the technology provider and AMIRES providing business support, has proven to be invaluable in creating a market ready technology within a short time frame. Such cases will also be supported within SmartEEs 2 project so stay tuned for news about that as its first Open Call is about to launch in March!​​​​​​

One day after the end of the kick-off meeting of the EU project, OrganTrans-in which AMIRES is a partner-, speakers from renowned companies and institutions presented the last updates of the state-of-the-art tissue and in vitro disease models technologies during the workshop: “Next Gen Organ-on-chip and Organoids”. AMIRES was represented by the attendance of Dr. Mariana Pacheco Blanco. This insightful set of talks were organized by OrganTrans coordinators, Swiss research and technology organization (CSEM), on Thursday February 6th, in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
When stem cells (precursors of cells) are cultured in a miniaturized and simplified way to represent the complexity of the organ 3D structure and microenvironment are called organoids. In order to mimic the conditions of real organs, the use of micro devices (or chips) have been developed, more substantially in the last decade. During the workshop, through different detailed presentations the audience could have an enhanced understanding of the new technologies using organs on-chip and organoids, mainly in the study of disease models.
The speakers presented data on the validation of the newest technologies of organs on chips, such as liver, intestine, brain, lung, neuronal networks, vascular systems, kidney, muscle. These chips are based on microfluidics, deep machine learning and automatized systems, even tissue printing platforms.   The use of these technologies is being used for the characterization, imaging, functional analysis and even drug studies of organs-on chip and organoids. Not only research in human samples were presented but also tissues of other species, namely rats and dogs, which allows the methodology to be more robust.
One of the main goals of the application of these miniaturized tools is to be able to implement a more personalized medicine, a “You-on chip” medicine as OrganTrans coordinator Gilles Weder more accurately described it.
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European (EU) H2020 funded ORGANTRANS project is set to develop a disruptive solution that enables the 3D printing of tissue-engineered constructs. AMIRES, together with seven consortium members, coordinated by CSEM will create a standardized and automated tissue preparation and maturation platform, which will provide patients with End-Stage Liver Disease (ESLD) an alternative to donor organ transplants.

Read the CSEM press release announcing the kick-off of ORGANTRANS.​​​​​​​

On October 16 2019, Switch2Save project was officially kicked-off at the meeting of consortium partners in Dresden, Germany. Coordinated by Fraunhofer FEP and with AMIRES participation, the project goal is to improve the availability and affordability of electrochromic (EC) and thermochromic (TC) smart glass technologies. 

The Switch2Save consortium includes leading universities, research institutes and industries from six EU countries. Within the next four years, the partners will collectively develop a combination of EC and TC cells – with optimized maximum energy saving potential – based on a switchable total energy transmittance (g-value). They will scale the manufacturing technologies for increased availability and cost effectiveness, assess the performance of the innovative insulating glass units (IGU), and demonstrate the heating and cooling energy saving potential and the lighting comfort in two operational buildings in Greece and Sweden.

​​​​​​​The Switch2Save EC and TC modules are based on nanoscaled thin film stacks that are applied to plastic webs or ultra-thin glass films by using large area vacuum and atmospheric pressure deposition techniques. The modules have a specific weight of less than one kg per square meter – much less than even a single glass pane in a window. They are easily integrated into IGUs by a lamination step to allow window and glass façade manufacturing with well-established processes – a key requirement for acceptance of the novel technology by construction companies. The integration of wireless switching and standard interfaces directly into the building automation systems will satisfy the needs of building owners and provide maximum energy saving when in operation.

Switch2Save will demonstrate the potential in two representative buildings – Greece’s second largest hospital in Athens and an operational office building in Uppsala, Sweden. The Switch2Save consortium will replace 50 windows and 200 m² glass façade area with the smart glass solution and will perform a full “before-after” comparison of the energy demand for a one-year cycle in both buildings. The findings will accelerate the widespread implementation of energy smart glass and significantly contribute to the goal of a CO2-neutral building stock in the EU before 2050.

More information will be shortly available at www.switch2save.eu.