The nominating institution Oulu Unuversity on the breakthrough: Kidney was the first organ that was transplanted succesully in human to resque from dialysis. Today due to diabetes and other chronic kidney disease millions are hoping to get a kidney replacement. Thus there is a enormous need for non rejected kidneys…

Biotech Innovation in Europe and Germany Falling Walls Circle Tables are lending the spotlight to world-leading scientists, science strategists and policy-makers from academia, business and politics discuss how we can apply science, research and innovation to get the world moving again. How could Europe create a global ‘hotspot’ of biotech…

HOW PRIMATE NEUROSCIENCE REVEALS THE MECHANISMS OF OUR PERCEPTION Who does not fear attention disorders? How many times have we over-looked what was right before our eyes? Many are the paranoias of a society drowning in a deluge of information. While we know that attention disorders, like attention deficit hyperactivity…

Klemens presented his work on “Breaking the Wall of Infection Diagnostics”. He revolutionised infection diagnostics with a simple yet impressive idea on detecting bacteria in blood. He developed an innovative way for specific and rapid pathogen concentration to fundamentally change sensitive and automated pathogen detection at a very low cost.

Katerina impressed the jury with her work on “Breaking the Wall of Cardiovascular Diseases”. Her idea of a new technology helps doctors improve surgical procedures that are tailored to the needs of each individual patient and provides optimal treatment for cardiovascular diseases.

How Insect Science Contributes to Understanding Human Immunity Let us be honest – when reading the words “insect research”, we rather think about killing insects than about learning from them. Luxembourg born immunologist Jules A. Hoffmann has based his multi-awarded career, crowned by the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or…

Lian presented a method through which prostate cancer can be diagnosed from a drop of blood. Lian and her team are developing a blood test that predicts the probability of metastases based on a motility indicator.

The nominating institute TU Darmstadt on the breakthrough: Species and natural ecosystems are disappearing at alarming rates. This is due to land use, drought and global warming. We’re only beginning to understand properties that stabilise species communities and their interactions. Blüthgen has developed novel methods to understand such ecological networks…

Jóse-Alain Sahel elaborated one patient’s journey from having sight, losing it and slowly regaining it after 20 years. He was sharing insights on the process that involves an innovative use of gene therapy, stimulating goggles and lots of training to restore vision for retinal regression.

The nominating institute Weizmann Institute of Science on the project: Currently, there is not a single treatment available for Alzheimer’s disease. Schwartz’s breakthrough therapy harnesses the power of the immune system to protect and repair the brain. It’s expected to provide the first disease-modifying treatment in Alzheimer’s and dementia. Her…

While nature builds all her organic materials from CO₂, the stability and inertness of the CO₂ molecule prevents its use in chemical technology. The team of Leitner searches for catalysts as molecular tools to break through this wall. Together with the company Covestro, they developed a catalytic process to incorporate…

How Quantum Physics Questions Our Perception of Reality Plato’s famous Parable of the Cave illustrates the idea that human beings will never be able to see the truth until they leave the cave in which they are held prisoners, forced to watch shadows on the dark walls, and seeing only…

The nominating institution GEOMAR on the breakthrough: Dr. Micallef’s work highlights the important role that offshore groundwater systems play for the geological and biological processes at the seafloor. The work in MARCAN quickly documented the abundance of freshwater below the seafloor. Recent estimates suggest that there is as much as…

Current technologies from silicon chips to computer memory to mobile phone displays are all derived from the fundamental quantum properties of materials. Creating novel materials and manipulating their electronic arrangements is the key to harnessing quantum properties at a macro-level for revolutionary technological advances. Suchitra Sebastian, an experimental condensed matter…

Donna Strickland is one of the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 for developing chirped pulse amplification-which is the current state-of-the-art technique used by most of the highest-power lasers in the world. In her talk, Strickland was talking about the relevance of lasers, the relationship between light and…

Birds are perhaps one of the oldest subjects of human study. From marvelling at their effortless flight to mapping their transcontinental journeys – with the advance of scientific progress, we have gained ever deeper insights into their biology. One of the most recent discoveries now shows yet another astonishing facet:…

Dr. Ijjas’ new cyclic theory shows that the observed properties of the universe are best explained by replacing the “big bang” with a “big bounce” – a smooth transition from contraction to expansion. Combining diverse tools from mathematical and numerical relativity, astronomy, and high energy physics, she further showed that,…

Cancer is the leading cause of death in high-income countries. Over 9.6 million people die every year from cancer. This disease is also present in other species across the tree of life. I have mapped 1098 species on the map of Earth, according to their habitat and diet, and have…

Extending high-precision measurements towards isotopes of the heaviest elements is challenging as these are only available on an atom-at-a-time level. This demands extremely efficient and sensitive tailored ion trap and laser spectroscopy approaches at large-scale accelerators featuring highest stability for measurement times up to days. This will improve our understanding…

How Supernova Explosions Trace the History of the Universe The universe is stranger than we imagined: it is 1/4 dark matter that we do not understand and 2/3 dark energy about which we know even less. Robert Kirshner, a world-leading astronomer mentored a generation of successful cosmologists of the Nobel-winning…

The recent paradigm shift in cerebellar neuroscience calls for the introduction of mundane technologies to fully unravel the role of the cerebellum in disorders like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or ataxia. A novel approach comprising of optical (fNIRS) and electrophysiological (EEG) measurements can be used as a flexible diagnostic and monitoring tool…

We plan to address the pain points of patients, providers, and payers with novel biosensors + analytic tools for improved outcomes following surgical drain installation. Tag: Med-Tech.

With increasing erratic rainfall patterns, droughts, overuse of irrigation water, degraded soils & non-productive soils, Daniela Inführ suggests using biohydrogel to protect plants from droughts and save 40% of irrigation water.

The project aims at investigating indigenous strains of rhizobacteria that could be used for rhizobia inoculant for use as biofertilizers.   Tags: Bio-Tech, Climate change, Environment & Nature, Food & Agriculture.

A bionic leg prosthesis that allows you to “feel” touch and move like a real leg will change the lives of millions of amputees. Making bionic leg and hand to be more bionic . Tags: Bio-Tech, Engineering, Biomedical engineering.

Chamikara Liyanage proposes using small proteins hiding inside prostate cancer cells as novel therapeutic agents that can overcome treatment resistance.

According to Dana Pousty, safe water can be accessible anywhere around the globe by using the sustainable UV-LED lab patented device which uses multispectral wavelengths to achieve maximum disinfection with minimum costs and energy consumption.

Using the XFEL at SLAC, we are constructing a compact X-ray laser oscillator that will open exciting new research opportunities in quantum optics, materials science, and ultra-precision metrology. Tags: Energy, Quantum Technologies.

We do deep research in examining these creatures and utilizing them for our behalf, we treated several patients who suffered from antibiotic resistant infections using phages, many of them successfully. Tags: Bio-Tech, Med-Tech, Science Policy, Microbiology, Antibiotic Resistance.

TruVer, a blockchain-based decentralized credential verification network, guarantees authenticity and significantly simplifies the current certificates certification process.

How tiny wireless robots can be used for non-invasive, precise, and safe medical diagnosis and treatment Robot technology is already abundant in the medical domain, ranging from assistance in surgery to complex prosthetics. However, using tiny robots inside the body is still a fairly novel thing to do. Inspired by…

The nominating institution University of Innsbruck on the breakthrough: AQT is building upon 2 decades of European quantum research to now turn this know-how into a commercially successful company. Within one year of its first funding round AQT has managed to realize a first European quantum computer demonstrator, implemented cloud-access…

How Climate Science Calls For Radical Changes in Energy Policy On the long and winding road to more sustainable energy and climate policies, the year 2015 saw several unexpected and positive developments – the largest fossil fuel divestment campaign in history reached its peak and led to trillions of dollars…

The nominating institution University of Cambridge on the breakthrough: An IoT-based system for continuous, remote, autonomous, and real-time ambulatory healthcare monitoring and recommendation system has been developed for nations with stressed healthcare resources. The AmbuSens system, which evolved into EpiOne, monitors patients in transit between rural healthcare units to specialty…

How Neuroimmunology Develops New Strategies Against Brain Ageing and Degeneration Michal Schwartz’ studies revolutionized the current understanding of degenerative conditions of the central nervous system. Her theory broke the long-held dogma that immune cell entry to the brain should be completely blocked by a cellular wall, and shattered the understanding…

In our first MAKERTHON OWL- OPEN.PUBLIC.PLACES from 5-7 June 2020, 4 institutions from science, economy, policy making and society invited 60 scientists and creative minds from all generations and backgrounds to design and prototype innovative ideas for streets and squares, churches and museums, parks and playgrounds in times of Corona…

Li-ion batteries are currently the most potent and widely used energy storage concept. To render the use of Li-Ion Batteries sustainable, suitable recycling concepts are urgently needed.

In a time when everything can be faked and where identity theft and fake news are on the rise, trust is a volatile and precious thing. For centuries, trust in markets and between people was granted by governments and law enforcement. In today’s complex globalised markets and societies, decentralised blockchain…

The nominating institute Carl Zeiss AG on the project: In 2020, KIT and ZEISS raised their strategic partnership by opening the ZEISS Innovation Hub @ KIT. Located on campus, the hub provides space for ZEISS researchers and KIT spin-offs, including nanoscribe, a successful KIT spin-off with ZEISS investment. It offers…

How a Bacterial Defence System Revolutionizes Biomedical Research Many past scientific revolutions started with basic research, curiosity and a surprise moment. When Emmanuelle Charpentier and her co-workers were busy studying the defence system used by bacteria to shake off attacking viruses, they knew that this discovery was relevant way beyond…