News

In June 2021, Droople entered a partnership with the Embedded Systems Laboratory (ESL) at the School of Engineering and the ALTIS Group (Valais) to implement the joint Research and Development project WaSTeLeSS. The project is planned to run until 2023 and achieve significant water savings in buildings through an advanced monitoring system based on distributed intelligence. 

Professor Silvestro Micera, from the School of Engineering’s Translational Neural Engineering Lab (TNE), has been awarded the 2021 EMBS Technical Achievement Award.

EPFL scientists have made an important discovery about the structure of barium titanate, a material used in everyday objects. Their findings refute existing theories on the displacement of the material’s atoms. 

Researchers at EPFL have developed a technology based on nanophotonics and data science to detect and monitor cancer biomarkers at an early stage. Their research is published in Nature Communications.

EPFL researchers have developed a device that can continuously measure the blood concentration of propofol – one of the main compounds used in anesthetics – in patients as they’re being operated on. That will help anesthesiologists deliver more personalized doses.

The Swiss Solar Boat is the first solar-powered boat designed entirely by EPFL students. Modeled after a Polynesian canoe, it will compete in the upcoming Monaco Solar & Energy Boat Challenge and, for the first time, have a pilot on bord.

The vast majority of drugs on the market are poorly soluble, meaning that their ability to dissolve in a solvent is not optimal, which causes them to be poorly absorbed, behave unpredictably, and may even induce an undesirable immune response. The EPFL startup Oryl Photonics composed of has tackled this problem by developing a novel device to rapidly and efficiently measure the solubility of substances at an affordable price. A very worthwhile workaround, given that in Switzerland one in two people over the age of 15 takes at least one medicine every week! Such is the importance of the solution developed by Oryl Photonics, which FIT is now supporting with a Tech Seed loan of CHF 100’000.

EPFL scientists have discovered that an engineered interleukin-10-Fc fusion protein can boost the effectiveness of exhausted T lymphocytes – our body’s immune cells for fighting cancer, by reprograming their metabolism. 

Engineers at EPFL have developed a predictive control model that allows swarms of drones to fly in cluttered environments quickly and safely. It works by enabling individual drones to predict their own behavior and that of their neighbors in the swarm.

Digital twins – a savvy combination of artificial intelligence and personal data – have already begun to revolutionize the way healthcare is provided. But they raise a lot of ethical and legal questions, especially given the vast amounts of medical data that must be collected to train artificial intelligence algorithms. So should we be worried about the eventuality of a digital clone? We spoke with experts from a variety of fields to find out.

A cryogenic controller chip opens the door to solving the ‘wiring bottleneck’ and subsequently to realize a fully integrated, scalable quantum computer.

EPFL researchers have developed a light-based approach to read out superconducting circuits, overcoming the scaling-up limitations of quantum computing systems.

Starting 18 May, a high-powered laser will be installed on the summit of Säntis. It aims at evaluating the feasibility of a laser lightning rod.

The 3^rd annual PhD Summit, on the theme of “Engineering for Sustainability”, will be held on October 25-27, 2021. Register now to compete for the PhD Summit prize, present your research work and interact with the top engineering faculty members.

“I will be an engineer!” is a quadrilingual (French, German, Italian and English) video campaign that pulls together the story of six very individual journeys of EPFL Bachelor’s and Master’s students from the School of Engineering into one narrative. Join our students, who invite us to explore their thoughts and experiences on what it is like to study engineering at EPFL, from what led them to deciding to join EPFL to what they wish for themselves as future engineers. This campaign is the result of a close collaboration between the Education Outreach Department and the School of Engineering.

Antibody testing can be a powerful tool for tracking the spread of SARS-CoV2 infections, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. A group of scientists from EPFL, UNIGE and HUG have now developed a reliable and cheap antibody test that can analyze more than 1,000 samples at once and requires a small drop of blood, such as that from a finger prick.

The 10th edition of Startup Champion Seed Night is taking place this Thursday, 29 April 2021. Nicolas Durand, CEO of Abionic – an EPFL spinoff that specializes in rapid testing based on nanofluid technology – looks back on his involvement in the competition’s first edition in 2012 and how his company has developed over the past decade.

With the idea to promote and encourage collaboration among scientists, the College of Management of Technology (CDM) has initiated a new Interdisciplinary Strategy to seed new collaborative research ties between key research areas of the College and other research domains present at EPFL.
This strategic program aims both at boosting the huge potential of interdisciplinary projects which already feature at EPFL and at fostering the integration of the College on the EPFL campus.

Mechanical engineers and mathematicians at EPFL have joined forces to gain a better understanding of the geometry and mechanics of two filaments in contact – as in the cases of knots and woven fabrics.

EPFL scientists have developed ultralow-loss silicon nitride integrated circuits that are central for many photonic devices, such as chip-scale frequency combs, narrow-linewidth lasers, coherent LiDAR, and neuromorphic computing.

Professors Aleksandra Radenovic and Michaël Unser from EPFL’s School of Engineering have been awarded European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants.

Thanh-an Michel Pham, doctoral assistant at the School of Engineering’s Biomedical Imaging Laboratory (LIB), won the second prize for Best Paper Award at the ISBI 2021 for his work on "Diffraction Tomography from Single-Molecule Localization Microscopy: Numerical Feasibility”. This research is part of the GlobalBioIm project funded by ERC (European Research Council).

The School of Life Sciences (SV) has joined the Center for Intelligent Systems (CIS) to combine artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision and robotics with expertise in the life sciences, and create intelligent systems in life sciences. Being an equal partner alongside EPFL’s other schools will further strengthen the development of interdisciplinary projects across the campus and push the boundaries of research.

EPFL spin-off Readily3D has developed a novel system that can print biological tissue in just 30 seconds. The firm’s technology is being used in a large-scale European project to develop a living model of the pancreas for testing new drugs.

A team of EPFL scientists has studied the behavior of defects on 2D crystals in water in order to better understand the crystals’ properties and assess their quality.

We are happy to announce that Blue Energy Leap, Arkaïya, and Condensation have been each awarded with a CHF 30K Ignition grant. This grant is the first step into the new EPFL Tech Launchpad program. The program is a tech path for startup projects to validate feasibility, accelerate and get market and investor-ready.

During the international conference GLASS MEETING 2020, organized by the Glass division of the Ceramic Society of Japan, Mrs Gözden TORUN, doctoral student at the Galatea Lab at EPFL’s School of Engineering, won the gold prize for her work and presentation in the category "Young Researcher Presentation Award" for her paper entitled “Effect of high-repetition rate femtosecond laser pulses exposure on ternary tellurite glass“.

EPFL scientists have developed an injectable gel that can attach to various kinds of soft internal tissues and repair tears resulting from an accident or trauma. 

School of Engineering scientists have developed algorithms that, combined with wearable sensors, could help clinicians to monitor the progression of Parkinson’s disease and assess the effects of medications commonly used by people with this neurodegenerative disorder.

EPFL scientists have developed AI-powered nanosensors that let researchers track various kinds of biological molecules without disturbing them. 

School of Engineering's spin-off CompPair has developed a family of composites that can repair themselves in just a few minutes when heat (100°C to 150°C) is applied locally. The firm has just completed its first fundraising round.

Results demonstrate MRI compatibility, good surgical handling and reliable recording in bioelectronic interfaces that conform to the nervous system

The director of the Protein Design and Immunoengineering Laboratory, School of Engineering, has been awarded the Protein Science Young Investigator Award.

EPFL Pavilions re-opens its exhibition Nature of Robotics which offers perspective on robotics in a human and organic environment.

Power converters play an essential role in electric vehicles and solar panels, for example, but tend to lose a lot of power in the form of heat in the electricity conversion process. Thanks to a new type of transistor developed at EPFL, these converters can perform at substantially improved efficiencies, especially in high-power applications.

EPFL engineers are taking part in PROMETEO – an EU research project to generate hydrogen on a large scale from renewable sources, in an effort to lower industrial carbon emissions.

EPFL startup INERGIO has just unveiled a prototype for a lightweight, eco-friendly, high-performance fuel cell that can supply energy in situations where there’s no power grid. Its system can be used to run delivery drones, weather stations, environmental sensors, telecommunication antennae and even campsites. 

The Institutes of Microengineering and Electrical Engineering at EPFL, which have been pillars of strength in the School of Engineering (STI) for many years, are joining forces and merging into a world-class Institute of Electrical and Micro Engineering (Institut d’électricité et microtechnique).

Twenty EPFL students recently completed the first EPFL Changemakers program – a new initiative designed to help students develop leadership and entrepreneurial skills and flesh out their business ideas. We took a closer look at three of the promising projects they’re working on.

A team of EPFL engineers has developed technology that could partially restore vision in blind people.

EPFL is pleased to announce that three promising startups Corintis, Omnigrasp and Qaptis, joined the EPFL Tech-Launchpad and received an Innogrant of CHF 100,000 each.

The Laboratory of Life Sciences Electronics (CLSE), led by professor Carlotta Guiducci, has worked with the Obstetrics unit of CHUV, led by Professor David Baud, to develop an innovative medical device to remotely monitor the risk of preterm birth from home.

The Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology has announced the appointment of professors at EPFL, including two promotions at the School of Engineering

One thousand newly-minted microrobots created in EPFL labs will soon be deployed at two large-scale telescopes in Chile and the United States. These high-precision instruments, capable of positioning optical fibers to within a micron, will vastly increase the quantity of astrophysics data that can be gathered – and expand our understanding of the Universe.

Hyaluronic acid, also known as hyaluronan, is a polysaccharide that helps establish the viscosity of bodily fluids. According to a new study by EPFL School of Engineering scientists, it also influences the behavior of far more water molecules than previously thought. Their findings – just published in Science Advances – open new avenues of research on the role water plays in the human body.

A team from EPFL and the Swiss Cancer Centre Léman has discovered that CD4 T lymphocytes, which usually play a supporting role in fighting cancer cells, also have the power to destroy them. 

EPFL scientists have developed a method for boosting the sensitivity of rapid-detection tests like those used for the new coronavirus. The results of their feasibility study have just been published in Nano Letters.

This year International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), which is a major conference for circuit designers, will be well represented by EPFL’s School of Engineering.

EPFL engineers, working in association with startup Xsensio, have developed a wearable sensing chip that can measure the concentration of cortisol – the stress hormone – in human sweat. Enabling future quasi-continuous monitoring, their device can eventually help doctors better understand and treat stress-related conditions like burnout and obesity.

In the second edition of the master’s course Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Engineering (IEE) – jointly offered by STI and CDM – students responded to industry challenges, building prototypes in teams and analyzing the viability of businesses. Under this year’s theme of “Sustainable Technology” six teams of 3-5 students competed, each developing a product prototype, a business plan, and an impact assessment for at least one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) outlined by the United Nations.