wire - news in brief

Summer series - Master's project (1). EPFL student Clara Grandry is completing an internship at Tetra Pak - the world's leading supplier of food-packaging products and processes - for her Master's project.

EPFL students taking the Assistive Technologies Challenge class have developed personalized systems for patients with motor impairments. Five years ago, César had a stroke that left him hemiplegic and therefore unable to use his left hand. Swan, a 15-year-old, suffers from dropped head syndrome. Caroline, who works in adult education, was born with hand deformities that make it hard for her to use a keyboard.

EPFL spin-off Alithea Genomics has developed a system that allows scientists to easily tag bulk RNA samples with molecular barcodes so they can be processed by the hundreds in one single tube. The technology promises to dramatically shorten and streamline sample preparation for RNA sequencing, which will enable new applications for this technology, such as biomarker discovery and drug development.

An EPFL PhD candidate in urban sociology spent four years working at the Montreux Jazz Festival in order to gain insights into how safety and security are managed, both within and around this world-famous event.

In 2018, EPFL introduced a program whereby highly motivated Master's students can create a startup for their Master's projects.

From banking to communication our modern, daily lives are driven by data with ongoing concerns over privacy. Now, a new EPFL paper argues that many promises made around privacy-preserving mechanisms will never be fulfilled and that we need to accept these inherent limits and not chase the impossible.

From exploring the nature of creativity to turning a building into an instrument, a unique collaboration between EPFL's Digital and Cognitive Musicology Lab (DCML) and celebrated jazz pianist Michael Wollny aims to push the boundaries of music theory.

By becoming a member of the SKA Observatory (SKAO), the largest and most ambitious radio astronomy collaboration in the world, Switzerland intends to foster Swiss research and industry while contributing to an international initiative that promises to revolutionize our understanding of the Universe.

EPFL spin-off ArcoScreen has developed a platform that turns the discovery of new drugs for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, diabetes and cancer from a marathon into a sprint. The firm's microfluidic readout system assesses the response of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) to new substances, delivering significant time and financial gains for pharmaceutical companies.

Two EPFL students, Nour Ghalia Abassi and Mohamed Ali Dhraief, spent ten days in Ghana working on water-related projects.

Working closely with users and therapists, EPFL spin-off Emovo Care has developed a light and easy-to-attach hand exoskeleton for people unable to grasp objects following a stroke or accident.

Just 12-months after it was created, in December 2004, 1-million people were active on Facebook. As of December 2021 it had an average 1.93 billion daily active users.

EPFL startup School Rebound has developed a revolutionary application that uses artificial intelligence to help students improve their handwriting in a fun and personalized way.

Dozens of EPFL lab rats will embark on new lives as domestic pets. The initiative, the first of its kind in French-speaking Switzerland, comes under a recently signed rehoming agreement with national animal welfare organization Swiss Animal Protection.

Researchers at EPFL have made strides in computer-aided animal tracking by expanding their software, DeepLabCut, to offer high-performance tracking of multiple animals in videos. The ability to capture the behavior of animals is critical for neuroscience, ecology, and many other fields. Cameras are ideal for capturing fine-grained behavior, but developing computer vision techniques to extract the animal's behavior is challenging even though this seems effortless for our own visual system.

Swiss roboticists and economists from EPFL and University of Lausanne developed a method for estimating the probability of jobs being automated by future intelligent robots and suggesting career transitions with lower risks and minimal retraining effort. When it comes to the future of intelligent robots, the first question people ask is often: how many jobs will they make disappear?

The class, which is part of the Master of Science in Microengineering program, lets students experience the design process from start to finish.

EPFL and the Smart Living Lab will embark on an eight-year research project designed to help Switzerland cut its energy use.

Writing , three scientists propose an open platform for managing the vast amounts of diverse data produced in chemical research. Based on principles of accessibility, collaboration and efficiency, the proposed platform could be spearheaded by EPFL. One of the most challenging aspects of modern chemistry is managing data.

EPFL has joined six other Swiss research institutions in CircuBAT, an initiative selected for the first Innosuisse Flagship program, in order to develop a circular business model for lithium-ion batteries.

Robotic wheelchairs may soon be able to move through crowds smoothly and safely. As part of CrowdBot, an project, researchers are exploring the technical, ethical and safety issues related to this kind of technology. The aim of the project is to eventually help the disabled get around more easily. Shoppers at Lausanne's weekly outdoor market may have come across one of EPFL's inventions in the past few weeks - a newfangled device that's part wheelchair, part robot.

The U.S. start-up Cryptosat has taken the EPFL developed Drand protocol, the internet's first production grade, publicly verifiable randomness beacon, into space for an historic experiment.

Engineers at EPFL and ETH developed a variable stiffness catheter made of nontoxic threads that can transition between soft and rigid states during surgery.

EPFL is introducing three new Master's programs to widen the offer of the School's cross-disciplinary study programs in basic sciences and engineering: the Master's in Neuro-X, the Master's in Quantum Science and Engineering and the Master's in Statistics.

EPFL engineering student Lucas Froissart designed an exoskeleton capable of propelling robot explorers into subsurface tunnels on the moon.

In a four-year field research program led by EPFL, in association with several other Swiss institutions, scientists will aim to understand the ecosystem of Greenlandic fjords in the context of a changing climate.

Human biology is the research focus of a number of EPFL labs, where scientists conduct clinical trials with volunteers to design therapeutic interventions and to learn more about how the body functions.

According to an EPFL study, if we take immediate measures to reduce CO2 emissions, we could limit the rise in the temperature of Swiss rivers to 1°C between now and 2090 without drastically affecting their discharge.

Demographer and migration specialist Mathias Lerch has shown that Zurich owes as much of its industrial era development to international immigration as it does to the rural exodus.

EPFL startup SwissInspect has developed a novel bridge-inspection system that combines structural engineering with drone technology, artificial intelligence and computer vision.

Research and Innovation community urges European leaders to take action on Horizon Europe.

A system developed by Grégoire Courtine and Jocelyne Bloch now enables patients with a complete spinal cord injury to stand, walk and even perform recreational activities like swimming, cycling and canoeing. The images made headlines around the world in late 2018. David Mzee, who had been left paralyzed by a partial spinal cord injury suffered in a sports accident, got up from his wheelchair and began to walk with the help of a walker.