SOFTINVADERS aims at advancing the technology readiness of the microrobots prototypes developed in the ERC-funded project CELLOIDS, paving the way to their future clinical translation. In CELLOIDS, we have developed the first ultra-soft microrobots and observed that they can move through gaps narrower than their size under magnetic actuation. The microrobots have a cell-like body consisting of a Giant Unilamellar Vesicle an aqueous liquid interior enclosed by a nanometres-thin membrane made of a phospholipid bilayer. This allows them to deform substantially and even form thin protrusions, squeezing through narrow gaps and between obstacles. Such ultra-soft microrobots have the potential to traverse body tissues, mimicking the interstitial migration of leukocytes. SOFTINVADERS will challenge our microrobots with the daunting task of penetrating a solid tumour. This could open new opportunities for administering anti-cancer therapeutics in situ. The translation from research towards innovation will be achieved by addressing three main objectives: (i) enhancing the capabilities and magnetic actuation of our microrobots to make them suited to tumour infiltration; (ii) developing realistic in-vitro tumour models for the validation of microrobots; (iii) establishing a research collaboration with a clinical partner to guide the design of anti-cancer ultra-soft microrobots and define an innovation strategy. If successful, SOFTINVADERS will provide a preliminary validation of tumour infiltration by synthetic magnetic microrobots. This will represent the first innovation step towards the realisation of microrobots-enabled in-situ administration of anti-cancer therapies, potentially leading to improved therapeutic outcomes and better life quality for millions of patients worldwide.

MYKI aims at developing and clinically evaluating a dexterous hand prosthesis with tactile sensing which is naturally controlled and perceived by the amputee. This will be possible by overcoming the conventional approaches based on recording electrical signals from the peripheral nervous system (nerves or skeletal muscles) through the development of a radically new Human-Machine Interface (HMI) based on magnetic field principles, both able to decode voluntary motor commands and to convey sensory feedback to the individual. Core of this system is a multitude of magnets implanted in independent muscles and external magnetic readers/drivers (MRDs) able to (i) continuously localize the movements of the magnets and, at specific times, (ii) induce subtle movements in specific magnets. In fact, as a magnet is implanted it will travel with the muscle it is located in, and its localization will provide a direct measure of the contraction/elongation of that muscle, which is voluntarily controlled by the central nervous system. In this way it will be possible to decode the efferent signals sent by the brain by observing a by-product of the muscle fibres recruitment. On the other hand, a movement induced in the implanted magnet by the external MRD, could provide a perceivable stimulus, conveyed to the brain by means of the peripheral sensory receptors present in the muscle (e.g. muscle spindles or Golgi tendon organ) or in the neighbouring skin (tactile mechanoreceptors). In this way we aim to provide tactile and/or proprioceptive sensory information to the brain, thus restoring the physiological sensorimotor control loop. Remarkably, with passive magnetic tags (that do not require to be powered-on) and wearable readers/drivers, it will be possible to implement a wireless, bidirectional HMI with dramatically enhanced capabilities with respect to the state of the art interfaces, as illustrated in this proposal.

Airflight and spaceflight gave mankind different perspectives and opened new paths for communication. A gap remains, between 50 km and 250 km of altitude, where the rarefied atmosphere makes it hardly viable to operate with either spacecraft or planes. Air-breathing Electric Rockets (AERs) will allow to close this gap, lowering the altitude of spacecraft operations below 250 km, in the so-called Very Low Earth Orbits (VLEOs). Operations in VLEOs will give radical advantages in terms of orbit accessibility, payload performance, protection from radiations, and end-of-life disposal. AERs combine an intake to collect the residual atmosphere in front of the spacecraft and an electric thruster to ionize and accelerate the atmospheric particles. Such residual gas can be exploited as renewable resource not only to keep the spacecraft on a VLEO, but also to remove the main limiting factor of spacecraft lifetime, i.e., the amount of stored propellant. Several realizations of the AER concept have been proposed, but limited evidence of the concept feasibility is available. The few end-to-end experimental campaigns highlighted the need to improve the AER functional design and the representativeness of simulated atmospheric flows. The difficulty in recreating the VLEO environment in a laboratory limits the data available to validate scaling laws and modelling efforts. The objective of BREATHE is to increase the understanding of air-breathing electric propulsion and to pave the way toward the in-orbit demonstration of the AER concept. With this aim, project activities will focus on: 1) Developing theoretical models and simulation tools, to characterize atmospheric flows and low-temperature plasmas; 2) Merging on-ground testing and virtual simulations, to provide a controlled environment for the characterization of prototypes and the extrapolation to flight conditions; 3) Identifying the main scaling laws governing AERs and, thus, the optimal operating principle and design.

Magnetically actuated untethered microrobots have been proposed in the state of the art since more than a decade towards the dream of accessing remote hard to reach areas of the human body. Nevertheless, some challenges still have to be faced before any microrobot-based therapeutic paradigm can reach the clinical practice. MAMBO (Magnetic swArms for liver chemoeMBOlization) aims at facing some of these challenges by targeting a specific clinical application, namely liver chemoembolization. The proposal stems from the idea to improve cancer chemotherapy and existing chemoembolization procedures by using magnetic forces to collect chemotherapeutics in the target region (through swarm control methods) and to controllably and stably embolize tumor blood vessels. Drug loaded soft magnetic microrobots featured by responsiveness to ultrasound will be developed to this aim. The responsivity to US will enable microrobot swelling and controlled vessel occlusion and at the same time their ultrasound-based imaging to guarantee their tracking in vivo. Magnetic swarm control techniques will be employed to enable microrobots locomotion in biologically-relevant fluids. MAMBO will last 36 months and is articulated in a 24 months outgoing phase carried out at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK – partner organization) and in a 12 months return phase in Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA – beneficiary organization). In the framework of the project I will try to deepen my skills in magnetic swarm control by benefiting from the major expertise of Prof. Li Zhang’s group. At the same time, I will share with them my background in medical robotics and drug delivery systems towards the development and testing of a novel therapeutic paradigm for cancer treatment. During the return phase at SSSA I will focus on the US imaging of the developed microrobots thanks to the Interaction with Prof. Menciassi’s group and to their expertise in US-based technologies.

While Western countries regularly intervene militarily abroad, recent years have seen increasing levels of military intervention by non-Western authoritarian and weakly-democratic states in the EU periphery. Non-Western interventions profoundly impact the security dynamics of an increasingly fragile EU neighbourhood. Despite this, the patterns and character of resulting conflicts are ill-understood, especially compared to recent conflicts involving Western states (on which much of the recent conflict literature is based). This project will conduct a highly original comparative analysis of three EU-periphery conflicts (Ukraine, Yemen and the West African Sahel) that have seen the involvement of four of the most militarily active non-Western states in the wider EU neighbourhood (Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria/Chad respectively). The fellowship will advance knowledge of: 1) how the character of conflict involving non-Western military powers differs from general conceptualizations of contemporary warfare (and each other); and, 2) how the character of these conflicts is comprehended strategically both by key state actors involved, and by Western security actors (EU and NATO). Such a project is timely given rising levels of conflict in the EU periphery and necessary given the absence of comparative enquiry into the evolving character of armed conflict across the wider EU neighbourhood. Through a mixed-methods analysis of three conflicts of critical importance to the EU, this project will offer innovative research findings on the causes, politico-military strategic logics, military practice and potential resolution of contemporary non-Western war that will support the EU’s recently-developed 2016 ‘Global Strategy’ for the EU Foreign and Security Policy.