About

We are excited to welcome you to this one-day symposium inspired by two pioneering scientific projects in Energy Materials.

The ‘Energy Materials with Biological Applications’ Symposium is a one-day event dedicated to advancing knowledge, fostering collaboration, and celebrating innovation in the field of energy materials. The Symposium is held as a joint effort between Professor Anne Ladegaard Skov, Principal Investigator and recipient of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Challenge grant “WeArAble - Soft wearables with high energy density: merging chemical biology and silicone chemistry with active compliant devices,” and Professor Anja Boisen, recipient of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Challenge grant “EMGUT - Energy Materials for the GUT.” Both projects are internationally based, with collaborators at University of Glasgow in Scotland, and at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, respectively.

The Symposium explores the synergy that arises when researchers with different backgrounds, i.e., Health tech and smart materials, collaborate meaningfully through similar academic fields.

The program also features four internationally renowned plenary speakers that will give presentations on cutting-edge topics to inspire new ideas within existing research projects and foster beneficial collaborations across scientific disciplines. Beyond the academic sessions, the Symposium provides a unique platform for networking, concluding with an exciting evening program that includes a guided zoo tour and dinner at a venue inside the Copenhagen Zoo, one of Europe’s oldest zoological parks.

EMGUT

Energy Materials for the GUT.

There is a growing interest in the influence of our gut condition on our general health. Our microbiota is for example anticipated to have profound influence on progress and development of major human diseases, which include obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, Inflammatory Bowel Disease and depression. At the same time, we lack tools for studying, detecting and treating conditions in the gut in a minimum invasive matter.

In EMGUT, we will develop and apply energy material-based solutions for minimal invasive ways of 1) sampling, 2) drug delivery and 3) sensing in the gut. Hereby, we enable our long-term vision, which is to both analyze and act upon local gut conditions and we call this gut engineering.

WeArAble

Soft wearables with high energy density: merging chemical biology and silicone chemistry with active compliant devices.
Despite the growing popularity of wearables in the form of smartwatches and various fitness trackers, soft and pliable wearables, such as prosthetics, soft exoskeletons and haptics, are far from being available as commodity products. This is primarily due to the many scientific challenges of constructing inherently soft materials that are still robust and have high energy densities, such that e.g. a limb can be activated.

The vision of the WeArAble project is to advance the development of soft wearables that are ‘mechanically transparent’ in the sense that the use of the wearables is imperceptible and does not inhibit the wearer’s motion or sense of touch. By combining tissue-like soft silicone elastomers with biologically tailored materials and smart device technologies, the project aims to develop comfortable wearables with sufficient energy densities for stability and longevity.

The outcomes of WeArAble will contribute to the shift towards mechanically transparent active wearables with meaningful applications across diverse industries (e.g., medical, sports, entertainment etc.) and create more equitable opportunities for physically impaired individuals that can benefit from soft wearable devices.