"Successful realization of this part of the research, for which I am responsible, would significantly reduce the time to disease detection, especially in the case of Fabry’s disease, where conventional methods require genetic analysis.

Rapid identification of complex biomolecules serving as markers for many rare diseases is not only a cost reduction in diagnostics but also of immense importance for health, and sometimes even human life," says Dr. Yaroslav Shpotyuk from the University of Rzeszów.

"As a result of the research I am coordinating, an advanced glass material for medical equipment and antibacterial coatings will be developed. Current antibacterial glasses lack sufficient durability, leading to low reliability. The new glass will help prevent the spread of bacterial diseases in hospital or clinical environments. The antibacterial coating, especially for high-touch point articles, will also find broader applications in places like schools, gyms, offices, and other public spaces," argues Dr. Andriy Kovalskiy from Austin Peay State University.

Prof. Andriy Luchechko, the coordinator of the sub-project supervised by Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, says: "White Light Emitting Diodes (WLEDs) are an integral part of semiconductor lighting technology due to their significant advantages over traditional light sources, including low energy consumption, longer lifespan, and high efficiency. Preliminary research indicates that cerium (Ce) and dysprosium (Dy) co-doped lithium-borate glasses have enormous potential in developing a new type of efficient phosphors for WLED applications. Therefore, within this sub-project, new glass matrices doped with rare earth metal ions will be investigated."

Prof. Yuriy Tomilow from the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences is the coordinator of the second project entitled “Spectral and geometric methods for perturbed wave equations with applications to fiber lasers”.

The project is about applied mathematics and is at the intersection of the dynamical systems theory, analysis and mathematical physics. It will include research on spectral and asymptotic properties of perturbed wave equations on manifolds and metric graphs, as well as the application of the properties to modeling fiber lasers.

"The goal of our project is to create novel multi-signal regulated systems that integrate a chimeric enzyme with 'smart' hydrogels and magnetic nanoparticles - says Dr Oleh Smutok from Clarkson University's Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences.

This will open up new opportunities in various areas of biosensory science, including biomedical, environmental and forensic applications.

Professor Evgeny Katz from the Faculty of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences at Clarkson University discusses the benefits of international collaboration as follows: "The novel study formulated in the present supplement proposal increases the functionality of the biosensing process based on the NAD+/NADH-chimeric enzyme by including it in “smart” signal-responsive materials (hydrogels or/and magnetic nanoparticles). It should be stressed that the artificial allosteric enzymes activated with the NAD+ or NADH cofactors have never been created and studied before. The novel approach presented by us overcomes the problem of expensive and time consuming synthesis of an artificial chimeric enzyme for each new analyte. The original (parental) proposal solves the problem by combining commercial NAD+/NADH enzymes, which are available for many different analyte substrates, with the chimeric enzyme specific to the NAD+ or NADH cofactors. Indeed, the first enzyme produces NAD+ or NADH cofactors in response to the numerous possible analytes, and then the second enzyme binds the produced cofactor and translates the conformational changes to the biocatalytic unit switching it ON and activating the biocatalytic reaction. In that way the Thus, binding of a single analyte molecule activates the biocatalytic reaction producing the amplified output signal. Now, through international collaboration, we will combine these enzymes with smart materials to increase their functionality.”

Dr. Klaudia Kaniewska emphasizes that this collaboration is important, among other reasons, due to its multidisciplinary and international nature. "The proposed research requires a multidisciplinary approach, as it is a combination of different research fields (synthetic biology, bioelectrochemistry, material chemistry “smart”-signal responding materials) all leading to the results in biosensing which cannot be obtained without this multi-disciplinary approach, therefore work within the international team is key to the project’s success. It is great opportunity to establish long-term cooperation and exchange experiences, and it also has an educational aspect by introducing junior researchers to the international scientific" says Dr. Kaniewska.

Prof. Mykhailo Gonchar from the Institute of Cell Biology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine adds: “It should be noted that the signal-amplified and signal-switchable enzyme systems will find many applications in scientific and technological areas related to biosensing, but not being exactly used for traditional sensing applications. These applications will include, but will not be limited by, enzyme-based unconventional computing systems where signal processing will be performed in a binary (0,1 / Truth/False) mode mimicking Boolean logic operations and other computational tasks (e.g., half-/full-adder, keypad security devices, etc.). Another possible application may include bioelectronic systems with switchable performance, e.g., signal-controlled biofuel cells operating as implantable or wearable bioelectronic devices with an adaptivity function.”

According to Dr. Marcin Karbarz from the University of Warsaw, these basic research studies hold the promise of numerous applications for a universal biosensor integrated with signal-responsive materials. " The results will lead to a new generic concept of biosensing with simple adaptation to different analytes measured with very high sensitivity (sub-nanomolar concentrations) being controlled by various physical signals (electric or magnetic). This will open novel possibilities in different sub-areas of biosensing, including biomedical, environmental, forensic, homeland security, etc. applications" adds Dr. Karbarz.