FUTUR Foundation honors three research projects at OST
Rapperswil-Jona - The FUTUR Foundation has awarded prizes to three research projects at OST – Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences. These concern cell monitoring in living brains, catalytic biomethanol production for ships, and landslide aid in the Swiss municipality of Schwanden.
(CONNECT) The foundation for the promotion and support of technology-oriented enterprises based in Rapperswil (FUTUR Foundation) has given awards to three research projects at OST – Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences. According to a press release, foundation President Thomas Schmidheiny commented at the award ceremony: “The winning projects clearly show the effect produced by combining the knowledge of specialists, companies, and students.”
This year’s main prize went to a team at the Institute for Microelectronics, Embedded Systems, and Sensors, which worked closely with biologists of the University of Zurich and the development team of Prospective Instruments. It refined a technology that is used to count individual photons with great accuracy. According to the information provided, the more compact system is 20 times as fast and can measure cell activity in living organisms with hitherto unprecedented accuracy and speed. This could be applied to the energy supply of cells in the brain, for instance.
The initial patent has been registered and a prototype is already being used by an Israeli research group. Prof. Dr. Paul Zbinden commented: “We would like to further develop the technology to real-time imaging in a subsequent project to enable live images during brain surgery, for example.”
The Advanced Materials & Processes team received a recognition award for its Biometh project, which has enabled it to directly manufacture liquid biomethanol for shipping and aviation from biogas without energy or hydrogen. Prof. Dr. Andre Heel stated: “We cannot fill up a whole container ship just yet, but we have shown that it is possible.” A demonstration facility for the new procedure is currently being built in Rapperswil-Jona in the Swiss canton of St.Gallen. The project is being supported by the enterprise ZeoChem and the shipping company Maersk, among others.
The award was also given to a participative landscape architecture project. After the severe landslide in Schwanden in the canton of Glarus in 2023, a team led by Prof. Peter Vogt integrated enormous boulders from the landslide into the new townscape in the form of floor slabs. Another project directed water which was responsable for the landslide into the district in the form of basins and watercourses. The affected population was included in the planning. ce/mm