In a stark warning, the Nobel Prize Winners say cutting investment in photonics – which is essential for powering high critical sectors like health, aerospace and transport – will be disastrous for Europe’s technological goals.

In an open letter to the European Commission, the Nobel laureates have heavily criticised the decision to make a 30% reduction in funding support by European Commission for a future Photonics Partnership 2021-2027 in Horizon Europe, the successor to the current Horizon 2020 programme.

The letter – addressed to Vice-President Commissioner Vestager, Commissioner Breton, Commissioner Gabriel and the College of European Commissioners – says the cuts will seriously compromise initiatives that are strategically important to ensure Europe’s competitiveness.

Without adequate funding, the Laureates who include Professor Gérard Albert Mourou, Professor Stefan W. Hell, and Professor Theodor W. Hänsch– all Nobel Prize winners for their work in the field of Photonics sciences – warn the four overarching European Union objectives will be seriously scuppered.

“There can be no Europe fit for a Digital Age, no full digital sovereignty and no ultra-secure sovereign quantum computing enabled cybersecurity without photonics technologies” say the Nobel Prize winners in Physics and Chemistry.

Photonics technologies are recognised as essential to support and advance four over-arching European Union objectives: the digital transformation of Europe industry; achieving the European Green deal and a sustainable EU future; the establishment of a future sovereign and resilient European digital infrastructure and, strengthening strategic value chains across key sectors.

Not Consistent

Condemning the move as ‘not consistent with the planned support for other key digital partnerships’, the Nobel Laureates highlight the proposed figure would represent only 35% of the Photonics industry requested budget for 2021-2027.

The current figure proposed by the Commission for a new Photonics PPP is in the range of €500 million. If confirmed, this represents a cut of over 30% on the already previous minimal budget of €700 million 2014-2020.

While the current Photonics PPP was funded to the sum of €700 million over seven years –already one of the smallest budgets for a key digital technology PPP over the period 2014-2020 – the allocated budget for the Microelectronics PPP was €2.5 billion over the same period.

The recent European Commission industry strategy “A New Industrial Strategy for Europe” clearly recognized Photonics technologies as a key enabling technology for the digital transformation of European industry stating, “The EU will support the development of key enabling technologies that are strategically important for Europe’s industrial future…including Photonics“.

The European Investment Bank in a separate communication identified Photonics as one of the two key digital deep technologies that will provide the secure, sovereign and resilient digital infrastructure necessary for Europe.

Equally, Photonics is now considered as one of the "digital technologies critical for attaining the sustainability goals of the European Green Deal”; through revolutionizing energy generation and energy conservation, along with distance monitoring the effects of both, on the environment and climate.

The signatories are:

• Professor Gérard Albert Mourou, a Physics Nobel Prize winner for the invention of ‘chirped pulse amplification’ a technique used to create ultrashort-pulse, very high-intensity petawatt laser pulses.
• Professor Stefan W. Hell who developed a method in which one light pulse causes fluorescent molecules to glow, while another causes all molecules except those in a very narrow area to become dark.
• Professor Theodor W. Hänsch, whose work on the ‘optical frequency comb’ technique won him, along with John L. Hall and Roy J. Glauber, a joint Nobel Prize.

Contact

W: http://www.photonics21.org

E: secretariat@photonics21.org

T: https://twitter.com/Photonics21

L: www.linkedin.com/company/photonics21

At present, many infectious diseases like COVID-19 or HIV/AIDS do not have an adequate vaccine so patients rely on early, rapid diagnosis for effective treatment and survival.

Photonics – the technology based on light – provides healthcare professionals with advanced, highly targeted, minimally invasive diagnostics that detect body signals, symptoms and diseases early on.

Developing medical devices, however, can take many years from concept to clinical trials.

While researchers and SMEs throughout the world work tirelessly to develop life-saving surgical tools, therapeutics and diagnostic devices, the work is carried out often in small and medium-sized companies, that often struggle to overcome such long and expensive processes. The team behind the pilot line aims to cut the costs involved in research and development of diagnostic devices.

So, to speed up the manufacturing of innovative photonics medical equipment, the European Commission has dedicated €15 million to set up a unique, single-point entry medical ‘pilot production line’ under Horizon 2020, the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

Easy Access

Called MedPhab, the initiative is the world’s first open-access medical pilot line that enables researchers, SMEs and businesses to turn their diagnostic and treatment devices that use photonics into industrially-relevant demonstrators.

The aim is to create easy access for European SMEs, researchers and businesses to a unified infrastructure dedicated to manufacturing, testing, validation and up-scaling of new photonics technologies that are used for medical diagnostics.

MedPhab coordinator Jussi Hiltunen said: “MedPhab is Europe’s first Pilot Line dedicated to manufacturing, testing and up-scaling of new photonics technologies for medical diagnostics enabling accelerated product launch with reduced R&D costs.

“We are giving researchers a way to develop research and development to market and to bridge the ‘valley of death’ – the impasse often associated with moving from prototyping to low-volume fabrication – while being cost-effective with faster delivery times.

“Our easy infrastructure provides the right experts for our clients to help them overcome integrating miniaturised photonic devices.”

“When a project leaves MedPhab, their device will be at TRL 6 to 7, at a stage ready for pre-clinical trials, however, our clients can come to us at many different Technology Readiness Levels," said Hiltunen.

Photonics

MedPhab focuses on photonics products to tackle one of the biggest societal challenges, the ‘instant diagnosis of major diseases’.

With its ability to reveal constituents and visualize incredibly small details in cells and tissues at a molecular level, photonics – the technology that uses and manipulates light – helps doctors and clinicians to understand diseases with greater specificity and sensitivity without being invasive.

Helping its clients to implement cutting-edge photonics technologies into their medical diagnostics products, MedPhab believes it will significantly improve health and patient care:

“There are exciting opportunities for research into the next generation of photonics-based medical diagnostic devices and MedPhab partners can help academic research groups by providing test devices that are required in pre-clinical studies,” said Hiltunen.

New devices from MedPhab technology will improve health and patient care and also generate revenue, job-growth and training opportunities for Europe.  This will contribute to the European photonics sector in which 5,000 technology-intensive companies (many of them SMEs) directly employ over 300,000 people.

Use Case Validation Program

To ensure that the prototypes adhere to the highest medical standards, MedPhab selects companies that are validated with ISO13485 standardised manufacturing.

ISO13485 is the standard for a Quality Management System for the design and manufacture of Medical Devices, and MedPhab only selected these certified medical companies as part of our production line.

“Their participation ensures the seamless transition from pilot line production to up-scaled production without a need for changing service providers,” said Hiltunen.

Use-case companies have been selected for the validation of the pilot line services covering both in-vivo and in-vitro domains.

Applications

The devices MedPhab focuses on are within three application areas: hospital use, home care devices and equipment for molecular diagnostics.

In the hospital setting, solutions assist doctors by giving them real-time information on how a treatment is progressing without the need to send patient samples to a lab.

The equipment for home diagnostics can be used for monitoring a patient’s recovery and for obtaining a broader picture than is currently possible.

Molecular diagnostics is about establishing a clinical perspective or diagnosing an infection based on a locally-tested serum, saliva or urine sample.

The pilot line also focuses on some specific technologies, including Fibre optics, Microfluidics, Surface functionalisation, Instrumentation, Optoelectronic integration, Custom medical patches, Miniaturisation for micromodules and wearables.

The pilot line is coordinated by Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy in Finland and includes seventeen other partners from across Europe, including (Ireland) University College Cork – National University of Ireland, Cork, Stryker European Operations Limited, Radisens Diagnostics Limited; (Austria) Joanneum Research Forschungsgesellschaft Mbh, Jabil Circuit Austria Gmbh, Genspeed Biotech Gmbh, Viennalab Diagnostics Gmbh; (Belgium) Interuniversitair Micro-Electronica Centrum, Antelope Dx; (Finland) Screentec Oy, Polar Electro Oy; (Switzerland) Csem Centre Suisse D’electronique Et De Microtechnique Sa – Recherche Et Developpement; (Netherlands) Philips Electronics Nederland Bv, Stichting Het Nederlands Kanker Instituut-Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek Ziekenhuis; (France) III-V LAB, European Photonics Industry Consortium; (Czechia) Amires Sro.

KETs will have a key role to play in helping Europe build a more circular economy, become a climate-neutral continent, uphold a global level playing field and develop a deeper and more digital single market.

The ambitious strategic document sets out plans for the future of Europe’s digital transformation, security and technological sovereignty by 2030.

Intending to help Europe’s industry lead the transitions towards climate neutrality and digital leadership, the strategy sets out its support for the development of photonics as a Key Enabling Technology.

The announcement in the strategy comes as a boost for the European photonics industry which is estimated to be worth €70 billion, directly employs over 300,000 people and is the second-highest manufacturer of photonics equipment globally.

Photonics21 Executive Board member Jean-Luc Beylat said: “The entire European photonics community and its partners welcome the continued support for photonics as a Key Enabling Technology in the European Commission’s new Industrial Strategy for Europe.

“With the likelihood of photonics production tripling to more than €200 billion in Europe by 2030, continued support as a dedicated KET means that light technologies can provide key components to future developments in driverless cars, healthcare, food production, and Industry 4.0 and help Europe become a carbon-neutral continent.”

Other KETs mentioned are robotics, microelectronics, high-performance computing and data cloud infrastructure, blockchain, quantum technologies, industrial biotechnology, biomedicine, nanotechnologies, pharmaceuticals, and advanced materials.

Scientists from the Horizon2020 project SOLUS have developed a non-invasive, multi-modal, imaging system that uses ultrasound and light technologies to easily differentiate between benign or malignant lesions – without having to perform a biopsy.

Similar to a pregnancy ultrasound appointment, a clinician scans the breast with a handheld ‘smart optode’ pen probe that combines light and sound to collate blood parameters and tissue constituents. 

Using a technique called ‘diffuse optical imaging’ – a method that has provided breakthroughs in neuroscience, wound monitoring, and cancer detection – scientists can monitor changes in concentrations of oxygenated and deoxygenated haemoglobin, collagen, lipids and water present in a suspected tumour against a pre-programmed set of results.

While mammography is accurate in detecting breast lesions, many women encounter false positive results – a positive detection of a lump but with no malignant cancer present. Clinicians, however, do not necessarily know whether a lesion is cancerous or harmless and have to resort to invasive procedures, such as biopsies, to make an accurate diagnosis.

According to a recent study, false-positive breast biopsies cost more than €1.85 billion ($2 billion) per year in the United States alone.

While You Wait

Able to provide a malignant or benign diagnosis, the SOLUS scanner reads a number of different parameters to create a thorough characterization of tissue. Gathering the total blood volume and oxygenation, collagen, water and lipid content, together with stiffness and morphologic information, the system produces an accurate, while-you-wait diagnosis.

Aiming for 95% sensitivity and 90% specificity, the project has combined commercial ultrasound imaging and elastography with novel diffuse optical imaging approaches.

The scientists behind the ‘SOLUS’ project are confident their new system will revolutionise breast cancer diagnosis. Professor Paola Taroni from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, said: “Women may have to wait days or weeks for a malignant or benign result to come back, which causes distress, as well as great discomfort from an invasive biopsy.

“Astonishingly, millions of unnecessary biopsies are currently carried out across the world at a cost of millions of Euros in Europe, and potentially billions worldwide.”

“Having undergone extensive laboratory trials, the SOLUS team plan to validate the system in real clinical settings at the end of this year and through into 2021,” Professor Taroni said.

Diffuse Optics

With ‘diffuse optical imaging’ the system uses light as an investigative tool to look beneath the surface of the skin, without making an incision.

Harnessing photonics and acoustics, this new system gathers diagnostic information from the composition of tissue and blood by sending pulses of infrared light and ultrasound a few centimetres into the breast tissue.

A clinician can then determine whether a lump is benign or malignant given that cancerous tissue is characterized by high haemoglobin and water content, and low lipid content.

“We have been applying diffuse optics to different aspects of breast cancer (lesion discrimination and an estimate of cancer risk) for 20 years now. Our team developed a multi-wavelength time-domain optical mammography which was used in clinical studies on more than 400 patients.

“Now an upgraded version has just entered clinics for the monitoring of neoadjuvant chemotherapy of breast cancer. Furthermore, our group performed a lot of work on other diagnostic applications, such as functional brain imaging and muscle oximetry,” said Professor Taroni.

Peter Gordebeke, Research Manager from the European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research said: “While SOLUS is developing biomedical imaging technologies to improve the diagnosis of breast cancer, we are making good use of diffuse optics for breast cancer and other medical diagnostics applications.

“SOLUS has created a user-friendly, non-invasive, low-cost, multi-modal imaging system for high-specificity diagnosis of breast cancer.”

“While our multi-modal imaging system can save millions of Euros by reducing the number of unnecessary biopsies, helping women across the world avoid these needless, painful procedures is priceless,” Gordebeke said.

SOLUS is supported by the European Commission in the framework of the EU Horizon 2020 ICT programme with a grant of € 3.8 million under the Photonics Public Private Partnership.

The project is coordinated by Politecnico di Milano and includes nine partners from European countries, including CEA-LETI, Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives in Grenoble, Supersonic Imagine in Aix-en-Provence, Vermon in Tours, (France);  University College London, (United Kingdom); Micro Photon Devices in Bolzano, San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, (Italy); The European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research (EIBIR) in Vienna, (Austria); iC-Haus in Bodenheim, (Germany).