Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BORGES (Biosensing with ORGanic ElectronicS)
Reporting period: 2019-01-01 to 2020-12-31
With respect to network-wide training activities, three training workshops were held, each including a blend of scientific/technological classes and courses devoted to fostering transversal competencies. Moreover, BORGES offered its ESRs a portfolio of five electronic lectures, given by experts and accessible at any time to the ESRs.
Each ESR prepared her/his personal career development plan and discussed it regularly with her/his supervisor and every six months during dedicated meetings with a group of three BORGES principal investigators.
With respect to communication to peers and dissemination, we launched the BORGES website, which serves as a platform for advertising open positions and sharing the main advancements to both scientists and citizens, with regular updates; we prepared a brochure to be distributed during fairs and conferences and delivered the first BORGES newsletter. Social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) were also created and are kept active also in collaboration with the ESRs. Free access to both live and virtual training events and to the E-lectures was granted to young researchers external to the consortium. All the ESRs participated in the European Researchers Night in a dedicated BORGES event held virtually, and, through their constant collaboration, the ESRs also produced both a tutorial video serving as a dissemination tool for non-experts and a blog, where their experience as fellows is described from their personal perspective.
With respect to the scientific activity carried out within Work Packages (WPs) 1 to 5, the main results collected thus far are the following:
- in WP1, experimental methodologies and theoretical models were set up and tested to investigate the molecular events underlying signal transduction in organic (bio)electronic devices;
- in WP2, novel material strategies and manufacturing procedures were developed, to address the needs of the biosensing community aiming at working with complex, real samples;
- in WP3, electronic biosensors towards different analytes were developed;
- in WP4, high throughput and additive manufacturing approaches were explored, in order to facilitate the upscaling of the devices from the laboratory to the industrial stage;
- in WP5, a comparison between innovative sensors and state-of-the-art methodologies and the development of informatics tools serving the device end-users were pursued.
In terms of impact, we believe that BORGES will operate at different levels. With respect to ESRs, BORGES will significantly contribute to strengthening their skills, therefore enhancing their career perspectives and employability so that they will meet the demand for experts in biosensing and organic bioelectronics. The planned training should make ESRs able to direct R&D activities and select applications and working scenarios. With respect to the scientific community, the work carried out will pave new ways for the implementation, characterization and assessment of the sensing capability of organic bioelectronic devices, also expanding their applicability to novel fields. With respect to the citizenship (general audience), the work carried out within BORGES is aimed at facilitating the development of organic electronic biosensors that hold great potential in terms of sensitivity (allowing for earlier diagnosis), low cost (enabling screening of a large number of samples), and the possibility to perform sensing at the point-of-care, even performed by non-experts.