University of Bonn Secures Three Proof of Concept Grants ERC to fund projects moving from basic research to practical application

Three University of Bonn researchers have been awarded a Proof of Concept Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). Neuroscientist Professor Dominik Bach, chemist Assistant Professor Ala Bunescu and radiologist Professor Philipp Vollmuth (from the University Hospital Bonn) are each receiving €150,000 over a period of 18 months. This program helps researchers to take findings from their work and turn them into commercial products or services.

That no fewer than three projects have been approved for funding demonstrates the University of Bonn’s growing innovative strength, which is also being boosted by the gradual development of transfer structures by the Transfer Center enaCom. “The ERC Proof of Concept Grants are a major sign of recognition for some uniquely innovative and visionary approaches,” says Dr. Daniela Treutlin, an enaCom innovation scout. “It shows that we at the University of Bonn start thinking early on in the research process about how new insights might also pave the way to solving some of the problems facing society.” The Transfer Center enaCom helps researchers to turn their findings to practical use and, together with the Transfer team in the Faculty of Medicine, accompanies applicants on their journey to take their product or service to market.

More about the three projects being funded:

Virtual reality environment helps with anxiety disorders

Professor Dr. Dominik Bach, a Hertz Professor in the Life and Health Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA) and Director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience (CAIAN) at the University of Bonn, is simulating anxiety situations in his project “NOVA: Non-Verbal Objective VR-Based Diagnostic Assessment for Anxiety Disorders” in order to improve how these conditions are diagnosed. “Up until now, diagnoses have been based on the subjective information that patients supply themselves,” Bach says, explaining the problem. “They fill in questionnaires that their doctor then interprets. This can distort reality, e.g. due to cultural differences or language barriers.” Aiming to devise an objective, fully automated and language-independent solution for assessing anxiety disorders, the NOVA team is simulating threat situations in virtual reality environments in order to induce natural behaviors in individuals. The idea is based on the research findings that Bach has been producing since 2018 with the help of an ERC Consolidator Grant.

Making it easier to manufacture specific molecules

In her project entitled “Pi-LOOP: Iterative Pi-Guided Polyaromatic Synthesis,” Assistant Professor Dr. Ala Bunescu from the Kekulé Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry is developing an innovative technique for manufacturing polyaromatic compounds. These are molecules that are composed of several aromatic rings and that are widely used in medicines, agrochemicals, materials for organic electronics, and functional dyes. The Pi-LOOP technology is aiming to make it possible to put together polyaromatic molecules out of simple building blocks step by step without having to rely on pre-functionalized raw materials or highly specialized reagents. Says Dr. Ala Bunescu who is a member of the TRA “Matter”: “In the long term, the Pi-LOOP platform could enable an automated iterative synthesis of polyaromatic compounds, as such dramatically accelerating the development of new functional molecules for industrial applications.” The project is building on the research findings that Bunescu’s group has been gathering since 2022 within the framework of an ERC Starting Grant.

Ramping up AI in radiology

Professor Dr. Philipp Vollmuth is heading up a project called “RAD-AI-INFRA: From Research Infrastructure to Radiology AI Platform,” which is based in the Neuroradiology Clinic at the University Hospital Bonn. He is developing a software infrastructure that can index large quantities of radiological data in compliance with privacy and data protection requirements. “Hospitals and clinics possess vast amounts of radiology images and diagnostic data that are crucial to developing state-of-the-art AI applications,” Vollmuth explains. “However, privacy and data protection considerations, regulatory requirements and clinical IT systems that don’t talk to one another are making it hard to actually use this data.” The platform is intended to enable hospitals to utilize large sets of clinical data for developing cutting-edge AI systems as well as test out commercial products using their own patient data and monitor them in day-to-day clinical operations. It has already been introduced in several university hospitals and is now to be developed further with the aid of the ERC Proof of Concept Grant so that it can be commercialized further down the line. The infrastructure aligns with the provisions of current EU regulations such as the AI Act and the European Health Data Space (EHDS). Vollmuth is Else Kröner CS Professor for Artificial Intelligence in Medical Imaging at the University of Bonn and Head of the Computational Radiology & Clinical AI Section at the University Hospital Bonn. He is a member of the TRA “Life and Health”. The project is building on the ERC Consolidator Grant that he secured for his “AI-Next” project.