Ian Erik Meredyth Stewart

The nominating institution Weizmann Institute of Science on the breakthrough: ALS is an incurable and fatal disease. A recent landmark study has identified a bioactive gut microbiome commensal and secreted product (nicotinamide) as disease modifying in ALS-prone mice. Importantly, human patients featured similar microbial and CNS metabolite alterations. This work provides…

How Philosophy Can Provide Frameworks for a Global Biotech Revolution Throughout history, when presented with new technologies, humans as a species have shown a recurring pattern: a tendency for reckless exploitation, often ignoring harmful side-effects and hazards, and only much later pausing to consider the need for ethical reflection and…

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…

PRESENTED BY Andresa Berretta e Silva NOMINATED BY University of São Paulo – Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto Tags: Bees, Pollination, Sustainable

Tejesvi Patel is addressing the issue of bacterial and fungal infections in wounds, particularly affecting diabetic patients with weakened immune systems. His proposed solution involves the development and testing of biocompatible PVP/TA hydrogels loaded with an antifungal drug, creating topical patches that can simultaneously release antibacterial and antifungal agents for…

In this Falling Walls Breakthrough Conversation, digital participants had the chance to engage in a live conversation with Jeyhan Kartaltepe. She talked about her role as project lead of COSMOS-Webb, the largest James Webb Space Telescope program to be observed in its first year of operations and discussed what we…

PRESENTED BY Tejas Kusurkar NOMINATED BY Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur Tags: Battery Technology, Zinc

The nominating institute Botswana Innovation Hub on the breakthrough: Mashaba’s consortium mobilises communities to identify challenges and follow a design innovation framework that quickly creates scalable solutions. The model follows a social entrepreneurship route, and establishes sustainable businesses in the communities — thus enhancing their livelihoods. It is being rolled…

My project concerns the application of VLP to a broader context. Many technical solutions exists, but they are not practical. I want to improve robustness, and make large installations possible. Tags: Engineering, Robotic.

The nominating institute University of Chicago on the project: Swartz and Hubbell are a married couple who collaborate on engineering interventions derived from chemical engineering and materials science. Their new approaches to immunotherapies show enhanced antitumour efficacy, reduced adverse events and tolerogenic T-cell education. These can be exploited for desired…