News from the lab

Marija Buljan. Image: Empa

The newest member of the advisory board of the "Swiss Personalized Health Network" (SPHN) is Marija Buljan. The Board of Directors approved the appointment of the scientist, who heads a research group on "Materials Science and Technology" at Empa. The main focus of her research is to decipher the disease-related signals that body cells use to activate the immune system. This work is particularly relevant to the development of personalized cancer therapies.

The SPHN is an initiative of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. The goal of the federally funded research initiative is to promote exchange and collaboration around personalized health.
more

Migros operates 11 hydrogen trucks, 78 biodiesel and biogas trucks and 13 electric trucks. The fleet is to be further expanded, as the cooperative plans to reduce its CO₂ emissions from road transport by 70 percent by 2030. The "M Opex Towers" software was developed together with Empa. It evaluates data from the more than 1,000 different Migros transport routes, including the distance of the route, the differences in altitude along the way, the weight of the load or the fuel consumption. This treasure trove of data is used to calculate which truck drive type is the most environmentally friendly for which route.
more

With the signing of a statement of cooperation, the BioProducts Institute at the University of British Columbia (BPI) and Empa are celebrating a new partnership to promote innovation and collaboration. The BioProducts Institute is situated in Vancouver (Canada) and operates four research themes, which might be complementary to the research acitvities at Empa: Biocatalytic transformation and engineering of biomass, Bio-nanoparticle enabled materials, Bio-based polymers and carbon materials and Biorefinery & Biofuels systems. With this new cooperation agreement, Empa and BPI will seek to share best practices through knowledge exchange, co-involvement in scholarly meetings, fora, and conferences, and provide reciprocal access to research infrastructure and develop bilateral funding opportunities.
more

This is how Augmented Reality (AR) works: The co-operate AR app allows virtual insights into co-operate, the new research campus of Empa and Eawag in Dübendorf. On site, so-called anchor points have been set up on the ground, which can be targeted with a cell phone. This allows virtual models of the buildings to be viewed in their actual environment and displayed on individual floors. At the same time, construction progress can be checked in reality. The app is available in the Apple Store and the Google Play Store.
more