The European Research Council awarded a grant of 2.47 million euros to Fèlix Ritort, professor at the Faculty of Physics, at the Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology of the University of Barcelona (IN2UB) and an elected member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona (RACAB), for obtaining the heat power map of an individual cell. The UB researcher received an Advanced Grant, the most prestigious and competitive award from the ERC, which offers researchers the opportunity to carry out research that can lead to major scientific breakthroughs.
The HEAT project (Heatomics for life) aims to "measure the heat of life", in Ritort's words. Specifically, it seeks to quantify negentropy at the molecular level, "an aspect that is still unknown to science". Negentropy is the capacity of a system to organize itself and remain alive, obtaining energy from its environment.
To obtain the heat power map of the cells - adipocytes and fibroblasts - Ritort will apply an experimental technique that he already used in 2024 to measure heat flow in individual red blood cells ( Science , 2024). This methodology allows the measurement of heat powers of one attowatt, equivalent to 10⁻¹⁸ W, a trillion times smaller than what is currently measured with calorimetry. To this end, he will collaborate with Professor Francesc Villarroya of the UB's Faculty of Biology and the Institute of Biomedicine (IBUB).
All living beings are considered to be non-equilibrium steady states (NESS), that is, they continuously consume energy and expel heat, operating stably. Living matter emits heat power due to metabolic processes. It is estimated that humans emit one watt of heat per kilogram. In contrast, the Sun produces 10,000 times less energy per unit mass than a human. According to Ritort, this is because living matter is capable of absorbing heat in order to continuously regenerate itself, a fact that distinguishes it from inanimate matter.
