Bart de Witte

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…

How Epidemiology and Prevention in Young Women Can Achieve an AIDS-free Generation The war against AIDS is fought on many fronts. Whether it is raising awareness about safe sex, developing preventive measures or working with patients in hospitals, on a vaccine or a cure: tackling the largest HIV epidemic in…

Nanotechnology is a promising therapeutic tool, but present implementations suffer from poor efficacy. My team and I are developing ultrasound-based micro/nanorobots with precise navigation capabilities that can overcome major limitations of existing nanodrugs. Ultrasound is safe, noninvasive, penetrates tissue, and is widely used in medicine, thus ultrasound-based propulsion will provide…

The nominating institution University of Helsinki on the breakthrough: Ovaskainen and Abrego have developed a Hierarchical Modelling of Species Communities (HMSC) framework, which revolutionizes how data on ecological communities is analysed and interpreted. HMSC allows data integration on species abundances, environmental covariates, species traits, phylogenetic relationships, and the spatio-temporal context. …

As the capabilities of current computer systems are fast reaching their limits, the huge potential for quantum computing to solve vastly complex problems is attracting ever greater attention and worldwide efforts to ‘win’ the quantum race are ramping up. Still, the term ‘quantum’ carries a mystical quality as we try…

Incubators and accelerators are a great way to support early stage startups (and often also first time founders) through education programs, matchmaking, mentorship and financing. With the overwhelming success of programs like Y-Combinator, we saw a surge in programs that are helping founders succeed with their startups. We are discussing…

Fostering sustainable fisheries needs robust science and engagement of stakeholders. My project is built on the joint execution of large-scale field experiments in cooperation among scientists and angler communities to generate high quality ecological knowledge co-produced by science and stakeholders. The experimental work was paired with intensive science communication activities,…

Nominated by: Lilach Weisz, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center Presented by: Rani Cohen

The nominating institute Indonesian Research Institute for Biotechnology and Bioindustry on the breakthrough: Today, molecular biology is not always related to transgenesis-based genetic engineering. Genome editing techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9 may revolutionize classic genetic engineering techniques. More than 14,000 international research papers have been published since 2012, and this number…

During corrosion metallic surfaces release ions, they ‘escape’, so to say. In my project I proposed an organic coating which captures the released metal ions and converts them to a protective layer. Tags: Engineering, Mobility & Transportation, Corrosion Protection, Coating Technology.