News

New radiolabelling method for personalised cancer treatment

Researchers from TU Delft have found a new method to efficiently make nano carriers loaded with radioactive salts for both medical imaging and treatment. Because the assembly of these nano carriers is incredibly simple, the innovation is very suitable for clinical research and treatments of cancer patients.
Gebotteld water

From bottled water to doctor

Most people, according to PhD candidate Mirjam Visser, say they want to shop sustainably but few consumers actually purchase the most environmentally-friendly option when shopping. For her thesis research, she set out to understand why some consumers will buy green options while others won’t - and how to encourage people to make more sustainable choices.
Professor Huib de Ridder

The many angles of technology and human centred design

From an early career in experimental psychology to Professor of Informational Ergonomics at TU Delft’s Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE), Professor Huib de Ridder has learned that there are a lot of ways to look at things. But one point has always remained central: it all begins with the human.

Helping designers give UX insights a longer life

Once a designer is no longer actively involved in the development process, UX insights are often neglected, reducing the UX quality of the product or service. This phenomenon inspired Lilian Henze’s PhD research into how designers can prevent it from happening and actually facilitate the use of UX insights in the entire development process

Did someone fall down the stairs or were they pushed? NFI and TU Delft are working on a model for complex falls

Did a person fall or was he or she pushed? Cases where a deceased person lies at the bottom of the stairs are complex. To aid detection, the NFI is working with TU Delft on a computer model that can simulate human falls.

Alfred Schouten appointed professor of System Identification for Human Motion Control

Alfred Schouten has been appointed professor of System Identification for Human Motion Control in the Department of BioMechanical Engineering. Alfred Schouten’s research focuses on the development of methods and applications for identifying and understanding neuromuscular control. He does this in both healthy people and people with neurological disorders.
Podcast Out of the Blue - episode 25: Jack and Yuka

Out of the Blue #25 - International students of Delft Design – Yuka & Jack

It’s been a long and well-deserved summer break. Before we headed off, we had a lovely chat with two international student editors of IDE. Yuka & Jack already share their experiences as international students as student editors on the IDE website. For this bonus episode, they talk with Ianus and Producer Marc about work-life balance, what’s it like studying Delft Design and much more. Enjoy! We will be back with our final episode on design & health soon.

New CRISPR-Cas system with on-off switch cuts proteins

Researchers from TU Delft in the group of Stan Broun have discovered a CRISPR-Cas system that cuts proteins instead of DNA.

Cells: strong at the right place and time

Researchers from TU Delft and NWO institute AMOLF discovered how certain molecular bonds make living cells both flexible, in order to move, as well as strong, in order to withstand forces.

TU Delft iGEM team aims to develop sensor to detect GHB in drinks

Someone may slip drugs into your drink without you noticing, after which you may not be able to think clearly. However, this kind of drugging can almost never be proven, because GHB disappears from the blood within 3 hours. The iGEM student team at TU Delft is working on a fast sensor to detect GHB in drinks. This will alert the user and provide evidence of drugging. 

TU Delft researchers create flow-driven rotors at the nanoscale

Onderzoekers van de TU Delft hebben de kleinste door stroming gedreven motoren ter wereld ontwikkeld. Geïnspireerd door de iconische Nederlandse windmolens en door biologische motoreiwitten hebben ze een zichzelf configurerende, stromingsgedreven turbine uit DNA gemaakt, die energie van een elektrische of zoutgradiënt omzet in bruikbaar mechanisch vermogen. De resultaten bieden perspectief voor de ontwikkeling van actieve robotica op nanoschaal. Het artikel is vandaag gepubliceerd in Nature Physics.

NextSkins: EIC Pathfinder grant for collaborative living materials research

A team of researchers from TU Delft, Imperial College London, and Aalto University have received a EIC Pathfinder Challenge grant of 4 million euros for their NextSkins research project on Engineered Living Materials.

Dekker scholarship for MRI research Sebastian Weingärtner

De Hartstichting heeft onderzoeker dr. Sebastian Weingärtner van de TU Delft een Dekkerbeurs toegekend. Dat is een persoonlijke onderzoeksbeurs voor getalenteerde wetenschappers die jaarlijks wordt toegekend. Met de beurs van 490.000 euro kan hij de komende jaren onderzoek doen naar hart- en vaatziekten.

Convergence brings together investment of 60 million for future-proof healthcare

Tien Flagship projecten van de Convergence, de strategische samenwerking van de TU Delft, het Erasmus MC en de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam gaan onderzoek doen gericht op het toekomstbestendig maken van de gezondheidszorg. De Flagships ontvangen bij elkaar 20 miljoen euro van het Convergence Health & Tech programma. Samenwerking met publieke en private partijen voegt daar nog eens ruim 40 miljoen aan toe.

Evolutionary model predicts how cells control the partitioning of their molecules

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation in Göttingen, Germany, and the TU Delft in the Netherlands have developed a new method to study how mixtures, consisting of many different molecules, interact to reliable form different droplets, as happens continuously in the living cell. This is the first time that scientists designed a model of many interacting molecules that can predict how particular droplets form. They published their findings in PNAS this week.

Kateřina Staňková receives Vidi grant

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Vidi grant worth up to 800,000 euros to Kateřina Staňková, a scientist of the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management. The grant provides her with the opportunity to further elaborate her own research idea and expand her research team. Kateřina explains what her Vidi research entails.

Baker’s yeast with human muscle genes

Biotechnologist Pascale Daran-Lapujade and her group at Delft University of Technology managed to build human muscle genes in the DNA of baker’s yeast. This is the first time researchers have successfully placed such a vital human feature into a yeast cell.

Collaborations by design

Addressing the complex challenges of today and tomorrow requires many actors, perspectives and disciplines. But forming effective and mutually beneficial collaborations can be challenging. Designing with Delft aims to facilitate this process, bringing researchers and educators from the university together with innovators from organisations to identify common goals, define a shared vision and develop concrete plans for collaborations.

Paper published in Health Economics, Policy and Law on preferences in health treatment divestments

It is currently unknown which characteristics of healthcare interventions are considered important by citizens when making decisions about divestments. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the preferences of citizens of the Netherlands regarding the relative importance of attributes of healthcare interventions in the context of divestment.
Research Xueliang Li: Handling stress: using wearable technology to help people with PTSD

Handling stress: using wearable technology to help people with PTSD

The obvious triggers of stress are all around us: pressing deadlines at work, children not sleeping through the night, a leaking roof. But sometimes it's smaller things, certain locations or specific times of day, that increase our stress levels. Understanding those triggers using wearable technology, with a focus on people who experience a lot of stress - people with PTSD - was the topic of Xueliang Li’s PhD research.

Gravity grant awarded to research on brain interactions

To understand how the brain works, we need to understand how each part, from neuron to brain region, interacts with the rest of the brain and with the outside world. Thanks to a grant of 21.9 million euros from the Gravity program, from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, a national consortium can now conduct further research into this.

From light spots to supersharp images

Making detailed 3D images of proteins in living cells with a special light microscope, without damaging those cells. That is what Sjoerd Stallinga, winner of an ERC Advanced grant worth 2.3 million euros, wants to achieve. In order to do so he is going to scan samples nanometer by nanometer using a sophisticated 3D light pattern in an approach that requires extensive collaboration between different disciplines.

Bacterial soundtracks revealed by graphene membrane

A of researchers from TU Delft , led by dr. Farbod Alijani, have managed to capture low-level noise of a single bacterium using graphene. Now, their research is published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Dutch Research Council Veni grant for Robin de Kruijff

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Veni grant to researcher Robin de Kruijff of the Reactor Institute Delft (RID) for her research on a new type of radionuclide generator which, among other things, can obviate the global bottleneck in cancer research. The new generator will, moreover, be the first recyclable one of its kind. “I hope that my new type of generator will ultimately make diagnostic treatments much more accessible and less dependent on a handful of reactors”, says De Kruijff.

Spotlight on aggressive cancer cells

Metastases in cancer are often caused by a few abnormal cells. These behave more aggressively than the other cancer cells in a tumour. Miao-Ping Chien and Daan Brinks are working together, from two different universities, on a method to detect these cells. Their research has now been published in Nature.