Universidad Complutense de Madrid :: LCAOS ESPAÑA

NEWSLETTER

Welcome!

Dear Readers,
 
Welcome to the first issue of the LCaos Newsletter.
 
This newsletter is intended to bring to you the latest news coming from our FP7 LCaos consortium activities and achievements.
 
The opening section, LCaos Activities & Achievements describes the General Assembly Meetings which took place on April 4-5, 2011 in Haifa, Israel, and on November 23, 2011 in Erlangen, Germany. The LCaos Technical Developments section consists of information about the technical developments and current work status, as well as some major outcomes and plans for the future. The next section, LCaos Events, Publications and Awards advertises relevant workshops and conferences, and a list of publications and awards resulting from the project’s activities. Finally, the LCaos Exchanges and Position Openings section is dedicated to exchange opportunities and position openings. This is the place for each partner to advertise any MSc, PhD or post-doctoral positions, or any opportunities and exchanges for visiting researchers.
 
We really hope you will enjoy reading the newsletter! At the same time, we highly encourage all our readers to send us feedback and comments. We would also be pleased to receive photos and contributions from all our project partners!
 
Wishing you success in your research and lectures!
 
Prof. Hossam Haick and Dr. Silvia Birsan
LCaos Newsletter

 LCaos Activities and Achievements

The two meetings of LCaos project  have promised a good start to a successful project!

 
The kick off meeting of the LCaos project took place on the 4th and 5th of April 2011 at the Technion-IIT in Haifa, Israel.  A concise overview of the project's objectives provided a general picture of the actions to be undertaken for an efficient, effective use of resources. This meeting was a good opportunity for the project partners to meet together and get to know people who are associated indirectly with the project such as Prof. Yachin Cohen, Dean of the Chemical Engineering Department; Mrs. Rita Bruckstein, Head of the Technion Research Development Foundation; Mr. Ofer Tsur from the Technion Research Authority; Mr. Alex Gordon, Head of the Technion Liaison Office; Mr. Jacky Lavan from the Technion Liaison Office; Dr. Zeev Gilkis, Head of Alfred Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering at the Technion; and Mr. Amos Levav, the Technion's spokesman.
 
The meeting featured an Open Session, which included presentations by each project partner about their own organization and their ongoing research, as well as an overview of the overall LCaos project concepts and objectives. Brief presentations of the work packages, project deliverables, work strategies and approaches were presented by each WP leader during the Closed Session. The session also included planning and discussions led by Prof. Hossam Haick. In addition, the closed session hosted the 1st General Assembly Meeting, when Prof. Haick presented the general principles governing the LCaos Consortium and responsibilities of the parties, and during which Executive Board and Management Support Team members were elected. Dr. Silvia Birsan pointed out some issues related to information dissemination and external communication as well as administrative and financial aspects related to good, successful project management and mo nitoring.  At the end, a tour of the LNBD (Laboratory for Nanomaterial-Based Devices) was organized. The laboratories house the most updated equipment used by the Technion team for their research.
 
  
LCaos participants in Akko, Israel, April 2011
 
 
On November 23, 2011, the 2nd General Assembly Meeting of the LCaos project took place at the Max-Planck Institute in Relangen, Germany.
 
The Open Session welcomed the participation of Siemens AG - Healthcare Sector and its representative, Dr. Thilo Elsaesser. The WP leaders presented the evolution of their project areas from the technical and scientific points of view – their progress and results from the beginning of the project until November 2011. During the Closed Session, there were discussions about future project strategies, some dissemination issues, and some administrative issues regarding the reporting and auditing processes. The meeting also included a tour of the laboratories directed by the Max-Planck Institute's LCaos project team leader, Dr. Silke Christiansen.
 
The participants very much appreciated all aspects of the meeting, since it provided the opportunity for a global view of the current progress and of the future plans.
 

 LCaos Technical Developments

The Max-Planck Institute partner has produced, by bottom-up and top-down approaches, silicon nanowires (Si NWs) with an average diameter of 50 nm and different doping levels. All Si NWs were characterized by advanced imaging techniques, such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).
 
The Technion partner developed a spray-coating approach to allow aligned deposition of the Si NWs on a wide variety of solid and flexible devices. Additionally, the Technion partner has integrated either individual or an array of Si NWs with platforms of field effect transistors (FETs) and investigated a way to use the resulting devices as sensors under real-world conditions. In this endeavor, the Technion team made a marked advance when they developed a Si NW FET-based approach to detect polar and nonpolar gas analytes that are found in highly humidified samples.
 
The Micronit partner has developed three concepts for the manufacture of an integrated exposure cell. One concept was chosen for further development during the next stages of the LCaos project. The selected exposure cell concept is based on a glass microfluidic chip with thin film electrodes on the surface contacting the sensor chip. The prototype exposure cells will be manufactured during the next stage.
 
The JLM Innovation partner has started planning and testing data an acquisition board that will easily integrate with the existing measurement platform available at the Technion. This will allow better testing for new electronics measurements, and faster integration of the system with the MultiSens data acquisition and with the measurement platform. Work on the board has already started, too. The first boards will already be available in 2012.
 
The University of Madrid has designed, optimized and tested a competitive unsupervised artificial neural network for two types of sensors as well as a new algorithm based on self-organizing maps/chaotic parameters to extract hidden information in huge databases. These chaotic parameters can be calculated following a really simple equation, and can even be done using a basic calculator.
 
The Tel Aviv University and Liverpool University partners have started recruitment of lung cancer patients (adaptation of "Patient information leaflets" to the local SOPs, collection equipment for breath samples, familiarization of research nurses with the breath collection system, and starting the collection and storage of patient material) at different stages of the diseases. Additionally, these partners have established in vitro setups to sample headspace of lung cancer cells. The efforts of these two partners have been supported by a new central database for storage of patient and measurement data, established by the JLM Innovation partner.
 
The IONIMED partner has made very good advances in the development of an artificial breath system that could simulate disease states and healthy breath states.  A user-friendly prototype is expected to be ready by March 2012. The same partner has made very good progress in the adaptation of proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) for online measurement of breath samples in the course of the LCaos project. This instrument will be delivered to the Tel Aviv University partner in the second quarter of 2012.

LCaos Events, Publications and Awards

Here is a selection of some relevant workshops and conferences attended by various LCaos teams:

·       Prof. Hossam Haick and Dr. Jan Metrovitcs attended and delivered talks at the International Symposium on Olfaction and Electronic Nose (ISOEN) 2011, Rockefeller University, New York, NY, US, 4 May 2011.

·       Prof. Hossam Haick attended and delivered an invited talk in the IASLC EDPC workshop and an invited talk during the Lung Cancer Biomarkers session at the WCLC 2011, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 1-6 July 2011.

·       Dr. Nir Peled chaired the panel "Breath Test Diagnostic Biomarkers" in the IASLC EDPC– Lung Cancer Biomarkers Workshop, WCLC 2011, 1-2 July 2011.

·       Prof. John Field chaired the panel "SWOT on proposed biomarkers for the incorporation into the work-up of the detection of intermediate nodules in CT screening" in the IASLC EDPC–Lung Cancer Biomarkers Workshop WCLC 2011, 1-2 July 2011.

·       Dr. Radu Ionescu attended the IEEE Conference and presented the poster entitled "Development of an Extremely Selective E-nose Employing a Single Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon-based chemFET", Limerick, Ireland, 28-31 October 2011.

 
Relevant publications issued by LCaos teams:
 

·       Paska, Y.; Stelzner, T.; Tisch, U.; Assad, O.; Christiansen, S.; Haick, H.* Molecular Gating of Silicon Nanowire Field Effect Transistors with Nonpolar Analytes. ACS NANO 6(1), 335-345 (2012).

·       Paska, Y.; Stelzner, T.; Christiansen, S.; Haick, H.* Enhanced Sensing of Nonpolar Volatile Organic Compounds by Silicon Nanowire Field Effect Transistors, ACS NANO 5(7), 5620-5626 (2011).

·       Assad, O.; Leshansky, A. M.; Stelzner, T.; Christiansen, S.; Haick, H.* A Spray-Coating Route for Highly Aligned and Large-Scale Arrays of Silicon Nanowires. ACS NANO (accepted for publication).

·       Wang, B.; Stelzner, T.; Dirawi, R.; Assad, O.; Christiansen, S.; Haick, H.* Scaling Properties of Transistor Channels That Use Aligned Arrays of Si Nanowires. SMALL (submitted).

·       Torrecilla, J. S.; Calvo, C.; Ceno, C.; Matute G.; Rodriguez, F. Detection of the nature of signals by the combination of self-organizing maps and chaotic parameters. (submitted for publication).

·       Torrecilla, J.S., García, J., García, S., Matute, G., Rodríguez, F. Modelling of hydrocarbon solubility in isomeric ionic liquids using mathematical regressions. Sep. Sci. Technol. 47, 392-398 (2012).

 
 LCaos Exchanges and Position Openings

We are pleased to announce an open position on the team of Prof. Hossam Haick (Technion):
Position: Full-time Data Analysis Software R&D
Responsibilities: (i) research, develop and implement data analysis algorithms & systems; and (ii) participate in the development of data analysis products
Education: M.Sc. / Ph.D. in a related field – electrical engineering, computer science, mathematics or related fields
Requirements: Machine learning / Pattern recognition analysis; MATLAB or object oriented design; advanced writing skills; strong capability for self-learning and independent work; good team work; rapidly acquire new skills and technologies; experience in building products (an advantage); fluency in English, and advanced presentation skills