So my message is always that if you like finding things out and understanding how the universe works in any of its dimensions, don’t let anything discourage you, go for it. If you’re slightly crazy - even better! 😀

And, to me, there’s no feeling under the sun that beats that of scientific discovery. To find out something that was unknown to mankind before is a feeling that no other natural or synthetic stimuli can emulate. Nothing compares to it.

We are privileged enough to be given the space to have ideas, get creative, and experiment, which is kind of playing with things and checking out what happens!

Feel free to access our paper here (50 days of full access): www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Together, this will help us combine the 3D physiological relevance of disease tissues, with the small and high-throughput type of systems that are so needed to uncover complex cancer-microenvironment effects in disease progression and discover future therapies!

Or use liquid-gel environments to create multicellular fiberoids - like a spheroid that is prolonged through space - with close cell-cell interactions like those happening in the cancer microenvironment, e.g., between glioblastoma and astrocytes👇

This enabled us to establish an awesome platform to fabricate miniaturized cancerous tissues with very high throughput and highly adaptable shapes.

We can create up to ~2500 spheroid pockets in 1 minute! And recapitulate tissue-like cancer solid stress by surrounding them:

2. Are we able to work with different material phases other than hydrogels, like liquids or even air, and use those to create new types of compartments within these microfiber boundaries?

Yes!

And we can use them to direct the growth of cellular assemblies.

This work was led by Ramon Rial, when he was visiting us for his PostDoc, and spun out of 2 challenges:

1. Can we predict the shape of hydrogel fibers spun through flow-focusing microchips computationally, test, experiment and optimize before stepping into the lab?

Yes!

Further information about the new funding instrument (substantially higher funds for up to 7 years) which had already been announced should come later in an amended version of the 2026 Work Programme.

3. Extended Eligibility Periods (Starting 2027):
• Starting Grants: Eligible immediately after the researcher's PhD defense, and within the next 10 years.
• Consolidator Grants: Between five and fifteen years after the researcher's PhD date.

2. Evaluation Process (Starting 2026):
• Part I (together with CV and Track Record) will still be the focus of the first evaluation step BUT Feasibility will no longer be assessed at Step 1. Part I should no longer include details on feasibility.

1. Revised Proposal Structure (2026):
• Part I (former Extended Synopsis) - 5-page section outlining the overall idea, current state of knowledge, research objectives (similar).
• Part II: Limited to 7 pages for Starting, Consolidator and Advanced Grant. Condenses previous Part B2 and to half.