Five new projects for the development of innovative health technologies have been funded by the European Research Council (ERC) at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Italian Institute of Technology) at its sites in Milan, Genoa and Naples. The announcement made today by the European body includes, among the 136 winners across Europe: Annamaria Petrozza and Mario Caironi in Milan, Alessandra Sciutti and Giuseppe Vicidomini in Genoa, and Velia Siciliano in Naples. The three female researchers and the two male researchers at IIT will receive Proof of Concept (PoC) grants of approximately €150,000 each, which will allow them to explore the commercial potential of their research. The fields of application include cancer, dyslexia and diagnostics.

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) has been awarded a new Proof of Concept (PoC) grant by the European Research Council (ERC) in its latest call for the RT-FLOW project, led by Stefano Discetti from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at UC3M. The project aims to transform the way aerodynamic experiments are conducted by enabling near-instantaneous flow field measurements using compact hardware, thereby reducing both the time and cost of these tests.

Three projects by professors and researchers at the Politecnico di Milano have received funding under ERC Proof of Concept grants. PROTECT, by Alessandro Filippo Maria Pellegata (Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering), aims to fill a knowledge gap with respect to drug safety in pregnancy. META-SENSE, conducted by the Department of Physics and coordinated by Margherita Maiuri, aims to develop a nanosensor to detect PFAS. Finally, the goal of the LANTERN project is to develop a method for microchip nanofabrication. It is led by Edoardo Albisetti, a professor in the Department of Physics.

Researchers from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have developed deepBlastoid, the first deep-learning platform specifically designed for the high-throughput, automated classification of human stem cell-derived embryo models (blastoids). By leveraging a ResNet-18 architecture and a novel Confidence Rate metric, the model achieves up to 97% accuracy and processes images 1,000 times faster than human experts. This tool facilitates large-scale drug screening and basic research into early human development by providing a standardized, objective evaluation framework.

New cutting-edge research, led by Academy Professor Otso Ovaskainen of the University of Jyväskylä and David Dunson at Duke University, combines citizen bird observations with artificial intelligence and the computing power of supercomputers at CSC – IT Center for Science. The international and multidisciplinary research team has developed the world’s most accurate prediction model, capable of anticipating even small shifts in bird occurrence almost in real time. 

For the first time, researchers have experimentally discovered optical meron-antimeron pairs—a novel class of topological quasiparticles that were originally conceived in particle physics and later found in magnets, but had never been realized in optics. By employing group representation theory, the team not only generated these states in deep-subwavelength plasmonic systems but also established a complete symmetry classification that dictates their topological invariants. This framework reveals a fundamental chirality-parity locking effect and enables the creation of isolated merons. Harnessing the robustness of these symmetry-protected states, the work demonstrates an ultra-sensitive sensing application with a record λ/133 resolution, bridging abstract theory to practical photonic technology.

As an emerging branch of clinical medicine, microbiota medicine has attracted worldwide attention from clinicians, medical educators, patient communities, and industry. However, this developing field still lacks consensus on its fundamental principles as well as guidelines for clinical and educational practice. An expert panel was convened by the journal Microbiota Medicine Research at the 2025 CHINAGUT Conference to develop the principles and practice guidelines of microbiota medicine.