Millions of people worldwide lose their lives every year due to implant-associated infections. Antibiotics are no longer a reliable solution for fighting bacterial infections because bacteria quickly develop resistance to them. Nowadays, any new antibiotic placed on the market will encounter a resistant bacterial strain that has already developed during the testing period. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop strategies that employ multiple bactericidal mechanisms, making it impossible for bacteria to acquire resistance. The proposed research takes a disruptive approach by developing antimicrobial microrobots to eradicate antibiotic-resistant infections associated with bone implants.

Globally, millions suffer from stenotic cardiovascular disease. A stenosis is defined as an abnormal narrowing of a blood vessel or heart valve causing a sudden pressure drop. This increases the heart workload and, in time, leads to cardiovascular death. A correct estimation of stenotic pressure drops is essential for diagnosis. However, current clinical methods to estimate stenotic pressure drops are rudimental and do not account for the underlying flow physics. We are developing a novel, non-invasive, patient-specific framework for accurate pressure drop estimation. We integrate advanced experimental and computational models that account for the complex flow features of stenotic diseases.

The average human heart beats 3 billion times in a lifetime. For heart failure patients, this is unfortunately not the case. The researcher will investigate heart tissue both experimentally and virtually to increase our understanding on the mechanisms driving heart failure. Based on microscopy, force recordings, computational models, and machine learning techniques, he will explore the relationships between cardiac tissue microstructure and the mechanical function of the heart. Doing so, the researcher wants to predict how structural tissue changes affect the performance of the human heart and use this information to improve treatment strategies for heart failure patients.

It is well established that the pupil contracts to light and dilates in response to cognitive activity. However, in the popular press and among some scientists, it is believed that pupil diameter is also an index of valence. This notion can be tracked back to Eckhard Hess, who in the 1960s postulated that pupils dilate and constrict as a response to pleasant and unpleasant visual stimuli, respectively. In a highly cited study published in Science, Hess and Polt (1960) measured pupil size changes in four men and two women while they were looking at various images and found that the pupils of the female participants dilated when looking at images of a baby, a mother and a baby, and a partially naked male, whereas male participants exhibited pupil dilation only when looking at an image of a partially naked female. Several subsequent conceptual replications reported pupil dilation for both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli, and Hess’s work was criticized for poor control of luminance (which could have confounded the pupillary response) and the use of small samples. Despite the criticisms, Hess’s work has been influential and as of today the notion of pupil diameter bears strong connotations to a person’s interests and preferences. Our research is a replication of Hess and Polt (1960) with new data. We will use the original stimulus materials and the same task instructions, and run two experiments: one using modern equipment and a second with a replica of Hess’s equipment, with 200 participants per experiment. Accurate measurements of luminance and pupillary light reflex to contrast effects will be conducted. In summary, we will replicate Hess and Polt as accurately as possible, while using advanced measurement equipment and by applying a larger sample size and proper statistical analyses.

For end-stage heart failure patients on the waiting list for a donor heart, mechanical pumps implanted in their chest are often their only option to survive. Given the high risks and severe discomfort of these devices, this project sets out to fabricate an innovative soft robotic ventricle that accurately replicates the natural motion of the heart. Based on a computationally optimized design, we will 3D print our RoboHeart prototype and perform extensive static and dynamic experiments to quantify RoboHeart’s acute and chronic performance, its efficiency, and its durability in response to realistic cardiovascular loading conditions.