The use of AI for drug discovery or how people can work better together, a better production method of porous electrodes, training supramolecular materials and getting a better grip on high-voltage pulses: these are, in a nutshell, the topics with which five TU/e researchers can develop an innovative line of research and expand their own research group over the next five years thanks to an NWO Vidi grant of up to 850,000 euros.
The Vidi is awarded annually by NWO. Of the 829 applications, 102 grants were honored, 52 to male applicants and 50 to female applicants, totaling 86.7 million euros. Five of these grants for TU/e researchers allow our university to make significant progress in various scientific fields. Below, the five winners talk about their projects.
Producing better and cheaper electrodes for fuel cells and electrolyzers
Antoni Forner Cuenca (department Chemical Engineering & Chemistry)
"In the urgent transition to a renewable energy economy, electrochemical technologies, such as fuel cells and electrolyzers, are expected to play a major role. Gas diffusion electrodes are at the heart of these systems but are currently costly and limit the device's performance. In this project, we will redesign these electrodes using a new method combining polymer phase separation and coating techniques. We expect that our approach will increase the performance and durability of the system, as well as reduce manufacturing costs."
"This technology offers solutions for clean transportation and energy storage - critical to decarbonizing our energy economy. Furthermore, we will create fundamental knowledge on porous electrodes that can be used for additional sustainable energy technologies. Finally, we will educate students and researchers in electrochemical materials and systems, which will play a role in this growing professional market."
"It is truly an honour to receive this Vidi grant, and it allows us to perform important research on fuel cells and electrochemical technologies. Given the duration and size of the project, we can work on ambitious and new research directions, which is a privilege as scientists."
Pioneering AI to accelerate drug discovery
Francesca Grisoni (department of Biomedical Engineering)
"Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized numerous fields of science and technology. However, its full potential in discovering new pharmaceutical drugs remains untapped and falls short of expectations. Stemming from this critical gap, we will pioneer next-generation AI methods for drug discovery, with increased creativity and problem-solving capacities - to ultimately accelerate drug discovery."
"The grant will allow us to explore uncharted scientific territory. We will have the resources and freedom to work creatively towards reshaping the machine learning algorithms used to explore the vast 'chemical universe' of molecular candidates. My research is mainly fundamental, but the potential societal impact could be enormous. Leveraging cutting-edge machine learning methods will accelerate drug discovery, which means that more and more medical conditions could be more quickly treated with effective medicines."
"Machine learning has the potential to shorten the time needed to bring new treatments to patients, including those diseases that are currently difficult to treat. We will create new and exciting technology at the forefront of deep learning for drug discovery. I'm excited to begin this journey and build a multidisciplinary team at the intersection of chemistry, biology, and computer science."
Training supramolecular materials to learn new tasks and functions
Ghislaine Vantomme (department Chemical Engineering & Chemistry)
"In today's era of big data, the need for new devices with higher performance and better energy efficiency is rapidly increasing. Inspired by the brain, functional materials able to compute themselves, with their active matter, are being explored as the next generation of computing hardware. A key facet of this challenge is to make materials that can be trained to store memory, learn, and make decisions. In this project, we will synthesize new molecules that can assemble into ordered nanostructures and be trained to recognize two-color images."
"I will use the Vidi grant to provide high-quality education and training for students, preparing them for future roles as scientists in industry and academia. Securing external funding is essential to maintain this level of education at our university. I believe this is an incredibly exciting time to be a chemist, as many of the most pressing societal challenges will be solved by chemistry, and our department plays a crucial role in this global effort, as we are actively educating and preparing the next generation of engineers and scientists to tackle these issues."
"Receiving a Vidi grant means I will have the freedom to conduct the research I want, which will allow me to pursue my ideas and acquire the resources I need. The societal impact may follow in the future, but I am currently focusing on the scientific impact. What if we could make a range of materials that could be trained, just as we train our muscles, to adapt to specific tasks and functions? To achieve this, we need to understand how molecules assemble and interact to form materials with highly ordered supramolecular structures, capable of reorganizing their morphologies and adjusting their properties based on their past conditions."
Unraveling the control of high-voltage pulsed power
Tom Huiskamp (department Electrical Engineering)
"A sustainable future is an electric future. Processes that now run on fossil fuels and conventional chemistry should be converted into electrical processes that emit no CO2. Pulsed power technology is ideally suited for this. The research in this proposal will significantly boost the performance of pulsed power applications, thereby making commercialization a step closer to reality so that the entire world can benefit."
"With high-voltage pulses, we can do fantastic things: clear air and water, generate fertilizers, and break rocks, all with just electricity. However, we need to tailor the pulses from pulse to pulse to the application for full utilization in the real world. In this project, I will take this crucial step by unraveling the complex interaction between the pulse source and the load in a case study and by the development of "Next-Generation Smart Pulsed Power Technology": fully real-time-controllable solid-state pulsed power that can adapt its waveform from pulse to pulse to optimize the application."
"Granting this Vidi project will greatly impact pulsed power science and its applications as it will unlock only dreamed-of possibilities. It will also act as a big stepping stone in my career and catalyze new collaborations with researchers (and companies) worldwide. Furthermore, this new research line will enable years of study into other pulsed power applications and new control techniques."
It was also announced this week that Tom Huiskamp will receive the 2024 Hidde Nijland certificate and prize , a professional award for talented researchers in electrical power engineering in the Netherlands.
How to support collaboration between people with generative AI
Steven Houben (department Industrial Design)
"We are in a period where technological innovation and progress radically impact the broader societal context in how we work and live. The sudden and widespread proliferation of AI tools (such as ChatGPT) into everyday work and life really foregrounds the necessity to produce deeper insights and knowledge about the role of such AI tools. Our work will explore how new interfaces, interaction techniques, and visualizations can integrate such AI tools more meaningfully into collaboration and interaction with the world around us."
"The Vidi grant will enable foundational research to address long-standing problems of how context-aware artificial intelligence tools can mediate and support new ways of collaborative, interactive computing. The goal is to establish a new mixed-initiative interaction model and information visualization vocabulary for human-AI collaboration based on the principles of information curation. This work will contribute to a more extensive exploration into the role of human-centred AI for the 'future of work'."
"The Vidi grant is an absolutely fantastic opportunity to establish a new research line and team to conduct foundational research and really dive into the underlying principles of a new interaction model for human-AI collaboration. Receiving the Vidi is a great honour and provides much freedom for exploring new ideas. I cannot wait to get started."
