Lancaster University has been awarded €498,000 by the European Union's Horizon Europe programme as part of an international collaboration in advanced sensing technologies.
The team from Lancaster is led by Dr Qiandong Zhuang with Drs Rostislav Mikhaylovskiy and Peter Carrington as part of a major new European research project developing next-generation "molecules-on-chip" sensor technology capable of transforming health diagnostics, environmental monitoring, food safety, and air-quality detection.
The four-year project "SafeDrop: Multimodal Photonic-Electronic Sensor Platform for Rapid Health and Environmental Diagnostics" has secured approximately €7 million in total funding through the European Union's Horizon Europe programme with Lancaster University receiving €498,000.
Coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research, the SafeDrop consortium brings together leading research institutes, universities, and technology companies from across Europe to develop a radically new sensing platform inspired by mammalian olfaction - the biological principles behind how animals detect and distinguish smells.
SafeDrop aims to create compact, low-cost, highly sensitive photonic-electronic chips capable of detecting chemical and biological substances in real time. The technology combines silicon photonics with thin-film transistor electronics in a multimodal architecture that generates complex "fingerprints" of chemical compounds, similar to the way a dog's nose recognises odours through overlapping receptor patterns.
The SafeDrop technology is designed to dramatically reduce the time required for diagnostics and environmental testing - potentially cutting analysis from days to minutes - while enabling portable, field-deployable devices that do not rely on large laboratory infrastructure.
Dr Zhuang said: "SafeDrop brings together Europe's leading expertise in photonics, advanced materials, AI, and sensor engineering. We are delighted to be part of this outstanding consortium and to contribute to the development of transformative molecules-on-chip sensing technology that has the potential to revolutionise health, environmental, and food diagnostics."
The consortium will validate the platform across several high-impact applications, including environmental water monitoring, urinary tract infection diagnostics, food safety testing, and exploratory air-quality monitoring. The project targets laboratory-grade performance in compact systems with low power consumption and low manufacturing cost.
SafeDrop also seeks to strengthen European leadership in advanced sensing technologies through an open innovation ecosystem, including open-source hardware designs, photonic design kits, and contributions to international standards for multimodal photonic-electronic sensing.
The project consortium includes partners from Germany, Romania, Italy, the Netherlands, Ireland, Norway, and the UK, bringing together expertise in silicon photonics, advanced materials, AI-driven sensing, microfluidics, and semiconductor manufacturing.
