ZHAW researchers win funding from the SNSF

For the third time, the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF has awarded Practice-to-Science grants to experts with proven practical experience. Three of the coveted prizes went to members of the ZAHW Department of Life Sciences and Facility Management in Wädenswil. One researcher at the Institute of Computational Life Sciences and two researchers at the Institute of Chemistry and Biotechnology were honored. Only 20 researchers from universities of applied sciences (UAS) and universities of teacher education (UTE) throughout Switzerland are eligible for the fellowship; the SNSF received a total of 73 applications for funding as part of this call. The prestigious Practice-to-Science grants are intended to help promote the competitiveness of application-oriented research.

Sandro Manni: Diagnostic tool for enzymes in blood plasma

Enzymes play a decisive role in the control and modulation of physiological and pathological processes. In these, they can have a negative effect on the course of the disease or, in the worst case, actively drive it forward. The identification and quantification of the enzymes involved is of central importance, as they could potentially serve as new biomarkers for a variety of diseases. The aim of the "Activity-based proteomic profiling in human plasma" project is to develop a chemoproteomics technology platform based on a novel approach. The aim is to create a diagnostic tool that can be used to analyze new enzymatic processes in blood plasma. Sandro Manni has been a lecturer at the ZHAW and head of the "Clinical Chemistry" department at the Institute of Chemistry and Biotechnology since June 2023. After studying biochemistry at the University of Bern, he completed his doctorate at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen. Before joining the ZHAW, he worked at CSL Behring in Bern, most recently as Principal Scientist and Group Leader.

Thomas Pielhop: Lignocellulose as a raw material for fine chemicals

Hyaluronic acid is widely used in pharmaceutical products and cosmetics, for example. Until now, however, the substance has been produced from edible biomass. The project "Sustainable hyaluronic acid production from lignocellulosic biomass" by Thomas Pielhop aims to use a novel approach to show that hyaluronic acid can also be produced from lignocellulose. This comes from wood waste or maize straw, for example. Lignocellulose is therefore not in competition with food production, but is more difficult to process. In a broader context, the project aims to demonstrate that fine chemicals can be produced from lignocellulose. This is because the chemical industry wants to move away from oil and natural gas and is very interested in substitute raw materials.

Thomas Pielhop has been a lecturer at the ZHAW since the beginning of 2022 and is building up the "Biobased Raw Materials" specialist group at the Institute of Chemistry and Biotechnology. After studying chemical engineering at the Technical University of Munich, he completed his doctorate at ETH Zurich. He was laboratory manager and chemical engineer for process development at Givaudan in Geneva before joining the ZHAW.

Yulia Sandamirskaya: Real-time perception for collaborative robots

Today's collaborative robots are basically blind while they move - because they perceive their surroundings far too slowly. This makes it impossible to use them safely and efficiently around people, for example in the healthcare sector or in hotels. As part of the "Brain-inspired vision technologies for assistive robots" project, a new computational concept for the visual perception of robots is to be developed. It enables fast visual real-time processing, continuous learning and autonomous error correction as well as close integration of visual perception, motion planning and control. The computational concept is based on the latest findings in computational neuroscience and cognitive systems research.

Yulia Sandamirskaya joined the ZHAW in April 2023 and heads the research focus "Cognitive Computing in Life Sciences". After studying physics at the Belarusian State University in Minsk, she completed her doctorate at the Ruhr University Bochum. Before joining the ZHAW, she led the Applications Research Team of the Neuromorphic Computing Lab at Intel and the research group "Neuromorphic Cognitive Robots" at the Institute of Neuroinformatics at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich.

Source: www.zhaw.ch