Glioblastoma (GB) is the most common and aggressive primary tumour of the central nervous system. Despite maximal possible surgical resection of the tumours and aggressive treatment regimens with radiotherapy and chemotherapy, patient overall survival is less than 2 years, as patients eventually develop resistance to therapy, resulting in recurrent tumours. …
Research and development of exoskeletons for injury prevention and assistance with everyday living has steadily increased in the last decade. With some products already available on the market, a widespread adoption of exoskeletons appears to be within close reach. However, many challenges still remain to be overcome, one of which …
Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry using MeV ions (MeV ToF SIMS) has been around for a few decades as a reliable, surface-sensitive method for the detection of molecular ions having masses up to 1000 Da. It provides excellent lateral resolution of a few μm for imaging of organic samples, making …
Alkali activation is a chemical process in which aluminosilicate-rich materials that dissolve in basic media at room temperature form binding phases by polycondensation. Alkali-activated materials (AAM), also called geopolymers, are inorganic aluminosilicate-based materials produced mainly from fly ashes and metallurgical slags or clays with high Al and Si content and …
The miniaturization of electronic devices requires the fabrication of functional components in the form of μm-sized thick films. Some of the most promising functional materials are relaxor-ferroelectric (1-x)Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–xPbTiO3 (PMN–100xPT), as they exhibit versatile dielectric, piezoelectric and relaxor-ferroelectric properties. However, the integration of functional ceramic thick films with non-conventional substrates such …
An everyday awareness of the presence of harmful chemicals around us has led to the development of a way to report overexposure through the reactions of these compounds with specifically prepared materials - sensory elements. In this doctoral dissertation we focused on the electrochemical synthesis (electropolymerization) of conductive polymer polyaniline …
We are speeding full throttle towards a climate catastrophe and we have only until 2030 to take action to avoid the most devastating and unimaginable consequences. The lack of political and corporate will to change the status quo of “business as usual” is causing mass protests and civil disobedience globally. …
Plant viruses are very important plant pathogens, causing economic losses by infecting cultivated plants, causing diseases, and consequently reducing crop quality and quantity. In recent years, the development of high throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies has dramatically broadened the possibilities for plant virus research and diagnostics, enabling the discovery of new …
The potential toxicity of nanoparticles in our environment and consumer products is currently determined by costly and timely animal-based testing, which limits the rate of nanoparticle testing, causing a desperate need for alternative testing strategies. A promising alternative – mechanism-based prediction – employs a set of high-throughput cell-based tests that …
Viruses, satellite viruses, viroids, virusoids, and satellite nucleic acids (herewith, referred to collectively or in part as ‘viruses’) comprise the virosphere and are perhaps the most diverse and abundant, yet still under-sampled, microbes on Earth. They are primarily regarded as pathogens or parasites of their eukaryotic or prokaryotic hosts. In …