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Around 80,000 babies are born in Switzerland every year, and fortunately the vast majority of them are healthy. Most newborns are carried to term, i.e. around 39 weeks, and are well developed. However, some babies are born prematurely, in extreme cases before the 28th week of pregnancy. In Switzerland, this happens to around 300 babies each year. These preterm babies have spent less than six and a half months in the womb, and oxygen deprivation (hypoxia) is a particular concern for them, as it can permanently damage their brains.
This is where the near-infrared optical tomography project of Martin Wolf, professor of biomedical optics at UZH, comes in. Thanks to the grant, the head of the Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory at the Department of Neonatology at the University Hospital Zurich will be able to develop a pioneering system that can detect hypoxia earlier and more comprehensively than current methods. “The aim is to prevent long-term disabilities through early detection,” says Wolf, who is delighted to have received the SNSF grant. At present, about a-quarter of extremely premature babies become permanently disabled. If Wolf’s project is successful, other applications are likely to follow, for example for cancer patients or in surgery.
The project is based on a chip developed in collaboration with EPFL professor Edoardo Charbon. This chip, called DeepSense, makes it possible to measure oxygen levels in even the finest blood vessels. It uses pulsed near-infrared light to illuminate tissue. The chip then uses the intensity of the light reflection to determine oxygen saturation in the blood, which indicates whether there is a sufficient supply or a potential lack of oxygen.
DeepSense features various technological innovations that combine to increase the sensitivity of the measurement and make it possible to analyze capillaries deep below the skin’s surface – something that hasn’t previously been possible. “The chip is the culmination of 15 years of development work,” Martin Wolf says.
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The aim is to prevent long-term disabilities through early detection.
The SNSF grant will enable the engineer and his team to develop the chip into a comprehensive imaging system. The aim is to create a handheld device, similar to an ultrasound scanner, that can be applied to different parts of the body to measure and display oxygen saturation levels in different tissues. This would allow specialists to intervene at an earlier stage if a lack of oxygen is detected. Current methods can’t visualize these processes until later, when brain damage is irreversible. Wolf expects the device to be ready by 2030, when the grant expires.
The SNSF Advanced Grants 2023 are the Swiss National Science Foundation’s replacement for the coveted ERC (European Research Council) Advanced Grants for Swiss researchers. The SNSF announced this week that it is supporting a total of 16 projects at Swiss universities with around CHF 31 million as part of the 2023 call, including Martin Wolf’s project. In total, 177 applications were assessed in the highly competitive process.
The SNSF Advanced Grant 2023 call was the last of its kind. The calls were launched in response Switzerland’s downgraded status as a non-associated third country in the EU’s Horizon Europe program. Now that Switzerland and the EU have reached the material conclusion of negotiations regarding the Bilateral Agreements III, researchers at Swiss higher education institutions can once again participate in almost all calls for proposals in Horizon Europe, according to news published on the SNSF website.