Prestigious European grant for ‘eLab4Life’

Prestigious European grant for ‘eLab4Life’

Diagnosing cancer at a very early stage, studying cell growth and developing new drugs: future Lab-on-a-Chip systems will make use of electrical fields on the nanoscale to detect and manipulate cells, proteins and DNA. The project eLab4Life of the BIOS group has received an Advanced Grant of 2.4 million euro from the European Research Council.

Lab-on-a-Chip systems bring the laboratory to the patient instead of the other way around: no longer a sample is transported to a central lab with the test results only being available after a long period of time, the future will bring labs in pocket format with instantaneous results: ‘point of care’ diagnostics will be the technique of the future. According to prof. Albert van den Berg, head of the BIOS Lab on a Chip group, a real breakthrough can be made by fabricating special nanostructures that induce local electrical fields to study and investigate individual biomolecules and cells. Up to now, the standard has always been to use optical techniques, which are difficult to integrate in a portable device. The new nanostructures that we have in mind offer the opportunity to further miniaturize analysis systems and make commercially attractive instruments.

Precise control

In one part of the project, in collaboration with prof. Pinedo, the efforts will be focused on developing techniques to detect cancer biomarkers at a very early stage, enabling a much better treatment of the disease. Another topic is the study of cell growth, which can be done at the single cell level by controlling local environmental parameters very precisely. For the development of new drugs, the newly developed methods also offer great perspectives: in collaboration with the company Modiquest, chips will be developed that allow high-yield cell fusion for production of antibodies.

The Advanced Grants of the European Research Council are European subsidies for cutting edge research. Out of almost thousand proposals in the area “Physical Sciences and Engineering” 105 projects have been selected, of which 9 in the Netherlands.

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Home News & Highlights People Vacancies Research Education & Assignments Publications Intranet Internal Links External links Movies Sitemap Search	weblink \| News archive \| Archive Highlights \| Promotie film Ana Valero Prestigious European grant for ‘eLab4Life’ Prestigious European grant for ‘eLab4Life’ Diagnosing cancer at a very early stage, studying cell growth and developing new drugs: future Lab-on-a-Chip systems will make use of electrical fields on the nanoscale to detect and manipulate cells, proteins and DNA. The project *eLab4Life* of the BIOS group has received an Advanced Grant of 2.4 million euro from the European Research Council. Lab-on-a-Chip systems bring the laboratory to the patient instead of the other way around: no longer a sample is transported to a central lab with the test results only being available after a long period of time, the future will bring labs in pocket format with instantaneous results: ‘point of care’ diagnostics will be the technique of the future. According to prof. Albert van den Berg, head of the BIOS Lab on a Chip group, a real breakthrough can be made by fabricating special nanostructures that induce local electrical fields to study and investigate individual biomolecules and cells. Up to now, the standard has always been to use optical techniques, which are difficult to integrate in a portable device. The new nanostructures that we have in mind offer the opportunity to further miniaturize analysis systems and make commercially attractive instruments. Precise control In one part of the project, in collaboration with prof. Pinedo, the efforts will be focused on developing techniques to detect cancer biomarkers at a very early stage, enabling a much better treatment of the disease. Another topic is the study of cell growth, which can be done at the single cell level by controlling local environmental parameters very precisely. For the development of new drugs, the newly developed methods also offer great perspectives: in collaboration with the company Modiquest, chips will be developed that allow high-yield cell fusion for production of antibodies. The Advanced Grants of the European Research Council are European subsidies for cutting edge research. Out of almost thousand proposals in the area “Physical Sciences and Engineering” 105 projects have been selected, of which 9 in the Netherlands.