Cancer is the second most important cause of death in Europe, with an estimated 2.27 million new cases and 1.3 million deaths in 2020. The prerequisite for a successful medicinal therapy is that the drug reaches its target and that toxicity towards healthy tissue is limited, however the systemic injection of drugs leads to less than 1 % of the drugs accumulating in solid tumours. Relying on the permeability of the blood vessel in cancer tumours, the encapsulation of drugs in nanoparticles (NPs) constitutes a promising approach for cancer treatment. However, the homogeneous distribution of NPs in the tumour tissue remains a challenge. To reach all cells in the tumour the NPs must cross the extracellular matrix (ECM), a major component of solid tumours consisting mainly of a network of collagen fibres embedded in a hydrophilic gel of proteoglycans. Together, they limit the diffusion of drugs across the tumour. Focused UltraSound (FUS) exposure has been reported to improve the delivery of NPs to tumour cells. FUS induces acoustic radiation force and cavitation that can lead to microstreaming or shock waves but the underlying mechanism(s) for the improved transport are not well understood. Successful delivery depends on many factors including the pathology, structure and composition of the diseased tissue, the characteristics of the NPs, and the exposure parameters of the FUS, making it a complex problem difficult to solve using an experimental approach. In this project, we will use molecular modelling to identify correlations between the molecular details of NPs and ECM, and FUS exposure parameters with NP transport across the ECM, creating a predictive model for FUS delivery of NPs and drugs to diseased tissue. The model, validated by experimental data, will contribute to the design of personalized medicine for improved NP-based drug delivery.

The goal of the TECTONIC project is to alleviate the challenging problem of hot-spots in 3D stacked chip-multiprocessors by employing a software-hardware based combined approach. With the stagnation in process technology scaling new emerging memory technologies are investigated. Promise of better scalability with reduced static leakage makes Non-volatile memories (NVM) as the potential candidates to replace conventional SRAM. However, many of the proposed NVM technologies are sensitive to heat, that raised up the issue of reliability. Considering heat dissipation as an exclusive issue of hardware will not be the appropriate approach towards finding out the solutions, as running-application has direct impacts on on-chip thermal imbalance. Hence, TECTONIC will manage the on-chip temperature and eliminate hot-spots by leveraging application specific knowledge extracted at compile time in combination with new hardware mechanisms for distributing computational work and memory accesses for even heat distribution while maintaining high performance.

Recent severe heatwaves and prolonged drought negatively affect agricultural crop fitness and biomass, threatening global food security. Therefore, there is an urgent need to enhance crop resilience against environmental stress to reduce crop loss. The cell wall is of key interest here due to its role as the primary barrier against environmental stress. However, improving crop tolerance via cell wall manipulation remains challenging due to plasticity, which determines the wall's ability to alter its shape, composition, and viscoelasticity (stiffness and viscosity). Plasticity seems to be modulated by the cell wall integrity (CWI) maintenance mechanism. A mechanism that continuously monitors the functional integrity of cell walls by utilizing a wide range of CWI sensors to sense damages in the cell wall and initiate wall remodeling. Any impairment in the CWI triggers adaptive responses, including the production of phytohormones. Abscisic acid (ABA) is one of the key phytohormones that regulate plant adaptive responses against abiotic stresses. Although the potential of the CWI maintenance mechanism modulating cell wall plasticity via ABA signaling has been proposed, the underlying mechanism remains largely unexplored. Therefore, investigating interactions between these processes may lead to the development of novel strategies to improve plant tolerance against abiotic stress. In this project, I will investigate the relationship between changes in ABA and cell wall viscoelasticity controlled by the CWI maintenance mechanism. I will also identify and characterize novel components of the CWI maintenance mechanism responsible for the induction of ABA production. Furthermore, the knowledge produced here will facilitate the identification of corresponding orthologs in commercial crops that can be used to develop strategies to improve crop performance.

About one-fifth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. Much of this relates to livestock used for animal-based foods. Rather than arguing for increased efficiency, MidWay probes the concept of sufficiency to explore its potential for reducing human impacts on Earth's biosphere while preserving overall welfare, i.e., its potential for defining a 'middle way' between 'too little' and 'too much'. To do this, MidWay studies the cases of meat and milk in China. While meat was always a high-status product, milk was historically considered a 'barbarian' food, and most Chinese were intolerant to it. Both products were scarcely consumed in Chinese history but have boomed in popularity over the past 40 years. While often thought about as a change of consumer preferences, it has taken a concerted effort by the Chinese government and domestic and international actors to make both products integral to Chinese food practices. Seeing China as a strategic research site to ask questions about the supply and demand of animal foods, the MidWay project hypothesises that what has made meat and milk integral to Chinese food practices might also be 'otherwise', i.e., opening up a possibility for a future disembedding of meat and milk from food practices. Thus, using a constructivist inspired lens, MidWay makes use of practice theory and 'systems of provision' to study the normalisation of animal foods in China, particularly since 1978, with China's opening up. The ultimate objective is to probe the concept of sufficiency as a useful organising principle to achieve reduced consumption - highlighted through the sub-objectives of understanding how meat and milk have been rendered desirable in China. Perspectives that show how food is connected to social, technical and cultural variables, and the system that provides food, are lacking internationally and could lead to changes through facilitating a multifaceted policy response.