The representative of TERM, professor Clemens van Blitterswijk, speaks highly of the project's funding to which the consortium itself will add 10 million euros. `The research in regenerative medicine is part of a national landslide. The funding acknowledges the importance of Dutch research into this matter. Within two years, we will start on eight biomedical research projects, in which we will apply the technology clinically.' Other partners are four spin-off companies of the UT, some teaching hospitals, the technological university of Eindhoven and a spin-off of that university. Regenerative medicine, also named `tissue repair technology,' aims for the repair of damaged tissue and organs using the human body.
A total of eighteen consortia were in the final round for Smart Mix subsidy money, a new initiative of the Ministries of Economical Affairs and of Education, Culture and Science. Only proposals of exceptional quality had a chance of funding. The researchers are internationally in the top of their area of expertise. Furthermore, the research must lead to a strengthening of the social and economical position of the Netherlands.
In the first round 158 groups enrolled which, in accordance with the rules, all presented themselves using only three A4 sheets of paper. After a strict selection, only eighteen (more detailed) proposals were left. Seven of those were awarded funding. The UT participates in four of these projects to some extent. In the consortiums, universities, institutes, teaching hospitals and companies work together. At the beginning of this week, the eighteen applicants heard semi-officially whether their proposal would be funded. The official results and the exact amounts of money will be published soon by the distributing authorities NWO and SenterNovem.
In addition to TERM, three other projects in which UT research groups participate have received funding. In no particular order: MEMPHIS (merging electronics and micro & nanophotonics in integrated microsystems). The representative for this project is UT spin-off Lionix (Hans van den Vlekkert), with participation of the research groups Integrated Optical Microsystems (Alfred Driessen and Markus Pollnau) and Semiconductor Components (Jurriaan Schmitz), both a part of MESA+. This project's goal is to develop an integrated platform of electronics and photonics, with logical circuits in silicon, high frequency electronics, nano-electronics and photonics. MEMPHIS has a large number of partners: the three TUs but also TNO, IMEC (Leuven), Philips and ASML.
In the third funded project, Braingain, the universities of Nijmegen, Utrecht, Maastricht and Twente (CTIT institute, Veltink and Nijholt), TNO, companies and patient groups work together in the field of Brain-Computer and Computer-Brain Interfacing. The goal of the project is to apply recent developments in the field of the analysis and influence of brain activity to humans, in order to improve the quality of life and achievements of both ill patients and healthy people.
The fourth project, SMARTPIE, is a cooperation of MESA+ groups CE, IMS and TST and research institute IMPACT with the TUs Eindhoven and Delft, Océ and the companies Aemics, C2V, d-Switch and Imotec. Project leader Guus Rijnders (research group of Inorganic Chemistry) is happy with the acknowledgement and says the funding of SMARTPIE is `a recognition of the technological character of the UT.' The project relies on fundamental research in piezomaterials, which are used in the automobile industry and telephony. `Piezo' is the transduction of electrical energy to mechanical energy and vice versa.
The three other funded projects are nano-imaging under industrial conditions (TU Delft, NIMIC), a new generation of high-efficiency screens for drugs against major human illnesses (Leiden) and catalysis for sustainable chemicals from biomass (Utrecht, CATCHBIO).
Trans. Henriëtte van Dor
