TU/e researchers Miguel Dias Castilho, Sandra Loerakker, Roy van der Meel, and Benjamin Sanderse have each received two million euros from the European Research Council (ERC). Over the next five years, the researchers will utilize the grant to conduct research into blood cell production, regenerative medicine, affordable cancer treatments, and more accurate simulations of turbulence.
Miguel Dias Castilho , associate professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering and ICSM and EAISI , will use the European grant to develop a ready-to-use bioreactor for unlimited blood cell production. "Blood transfusions are currently entirely dependent on voluntary donations, but demand exceeds supply, especially for rare blood types. One possible solution is to grow blood-producing cells in the lab, but that is anything but easy," explains Dias Castilho.
He explains why attempts to mimic the natural process of blood-producing cells in the lab have so far been unsuccessful: "The cells quickly lose their ability to renew themselves and form blood cells in the lab. This is because we do not yet fully understand the signals and conditions in the bone marrow and lack the right production resources to replicate that environment."
Mimicking bone marrow
With the Infiniblood research project, Dias Castilho is taking on the challenge of "developing a scalable printing process. This will enable us to design biomaterials precisely to mimic the bone marrow environment." Thanks to this European grant, the researcher and his team have "the freedom to explore new biomaterials and tissue production methods that can have a real impact on healthcare."
Regenerative medicine
Sandra Loerakker is an associate professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the ICSM institute. She is using her ERC Consolidator Grant to conduct research into the possibilities of regenerative medicine. "If successful, diseased or malformed tissues can be repaired or rebuilt to restore healthy tissue structure and function," explains Loerakker. "This offers a cure for many diseases, rather than just palliative care."
The Bio-DESIGN research project, which Loerakker is funding with this grant, focuses on developing mathematical models to improve our understanding of regeneration. "And to identify promising strategies for regeneration," says the researcher.
Major challenge
"A major challenge in regenerative medicine is restoring healthy tissue structure, because this is necessary for the body to function properly," she continues. "That is difficult, because the processes of regeneration are very complex. This makes it difficult to predict in advance how the tissue will organize and function."
With the ERC Consolidator Grant, Loerakker can take her research into regenerative medicine in a new direction, namely toward the heart and blood vessels. And she can do so with a larger team.
REROUTING CAR
Roy van der Meel is an associate professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering and ICMS. With the REROUTING CAR research program, he focuses on more affordable applications of cell therapy (CAR-T) for a wider range of cancer types. "Current CAR-T treatments cost more than €1 million. This makes them difficult to access for many patients," says Van der Meel.
To make this treatment more affordable and suitable for multiple types of cancer, it is necessary to be able to produce CAR immune cells directly within the body. Van der Meel has developed a new method in collaboration with fellow researcher Willem Mulder and research teams from TU/e and Radboud UMC .
Tremendous recognition
With the European grant now awarded, they can test whether this new and versatile form of therapy can be applied without 'complicated laboratory steps'. "This approach can help not only with cancer, but also with autoimmune diseases and cardiovascular diseases," explains Van der Meel. He sees the ERC grant as "tremendous recognition for the research and technology that we have developed together over the past few years."
Computer simulations of turbulence
Turbulent flows of air, water, and gases are crucial for energy applications, climate models, and accurate weather forecasting; however, even the most advanced supercomputers struggle to predict them reliably. Associate Professor Benjamin Sanderse , Department of Mathematics and Computer Sciences and the Research institute for mathematics & computer science , is using the European grant to assemble a research team that will develop new models to make those computer simulations of turbulence both accurate and stable.
Within the research project called SYMBIOSIS, Sanderse and his team are employing a novel approach that utilizes entropy as a new concept to combine physical laws and machine learning, thereby constructing new models. This results in models that are stable, follow the laws of nature, and better cope with the unpredictable, chaotic movements of turbulence.
Widely applicable
The tools developed within SYMBIOSIS can, for example, help to improve the design and operation of large wind farms. This results in models that illustrate how turbulent airflows interact with wind turbines. Sanderse: "Because the underlying mathematical methods are generic, they can also advance many other applications where complex multi-scale flows play a role. Ranging from weather and climate models to life sciences."
ERC Consolidator Grants
The ERC's mission is to encourage the highest quality research in Europe through competitive funding and to support frontier research across all fields, based on scientific excellence. ERC grants enable Europe's brightest minds to identify new opportunities and directions in any field of research, catalyzing new and unpredictable scientific and technological discoveries.
The ERC Consolidator Grants are awarded to outstanding researchers of any nationality and age, with at least seven and up to twelve years of experience after a PhD, and a scientific track record showing great promise.
