We are excited to announce that two projects from the 2024 call “Environmental Systems Research” by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF) have been selected for funding!

The projects that have been selected are Ivona Brandic’s project “AI-supported Holographic Environmental Water Monitoring”, which combines holographic microscopy with novel AI methods to provide new insights in environmental water monitoring. Ivona will be working on this project together with Peter Van Oostrum from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU).* The second project that’s been selected for funding is “Pioneering a Transdisciplinary Urban Surveillance System for Human Papilloma Virus with Vulnerable Communities” by Nikolas Popper, who will be working together with Andreas Bergthaler from the Medical University of Vienna and Lisa Lehner from the University of Vienna. The project takes a transdisciplinary approach to map viral population dynamics onto urban social dynamics to unveil transmission networks and contribute to the prevention of HPV-linked cancers. Together, the projects are funded with over 1.3 million Euros.

The 2024 Call „Environmental Systems Research” invited scientists to conduct interdisciplinary research projects (lasting up to four years) investigating fundamental questions of human-environment interactions in urban and peri-urban areas.

AI-supported Holographic Environmental Water Monitoring

The drinking water provision of Vienna represents one of the most critical infrastructures of the city. The water for this service is sourced from the environment and lead through two mountain spring pipelines from the areas around Schneeberg, Rax, Schneealpe and Hochschwab to Vienna with minor treatments. Current methods for quality control of the water consist mainly in several online measurements of e.g. the turbidity and absorption spectra. These are used to decide which water from 70 different sources is mixed together when. Relatively little information on the origin of the turbidity is currently available. In HoloWaterAI, we want to couple holographic microscopy with state of the art AI methods to provide new insights in environmental water monitoring. Holographic microscopes will take samples fully autonomously and image each and every light scattering object in the sample volume to see what causes the turbidity: sediments, plastic objects, plant fragments, small animals, algae and bacteria. These can be characterized on their appearance, color, shape, light scattering and speed (flow, sedimentation and swimming). Novel IoT tools coupled with AI based methods and digital twin technology will facilitate real time analysis and thus better decisions with short reaction times. In addition, based on the long term data aggregation, it will be possible to reveal changes in the water quality that cannot be detected otherwise. The developed methods will be broadly applicable.

Pioneering a Transdisciplinary Urban Surveillance System for Human Papilloma Virus with Vulnerable Communities

In 2023, Austria extended its national vaccination program for Human Papillomavirus (HPV), joining WHO’s call to eliminate cervical cancer and expanding its goals with a gender-neutral policy. Yet, the lack of any HPV surveillance system poses severe challenges in assessing the impact of vaccination, the evolutionary consequences on circulating HPV genotypes, and the basic sociality of HPV within dense urban environments. This project proposes a novel transdisciplinary approach which integrates sequencing-based genomic epidemiology, mixed-method public health research, and agent-based modelling to tackle these interconnected challenges. We will map viral population dynamics onto urban social dynamics, unveiling transmission networks and contributing to prevention of HPV-linked cancers. Partnering with an NGO that supports underserved patients, volunteer HPV swabbing will be enhanced through social participatory methods, and complemented by a novel pipeline to detect population-wide circulating HPV genotypes from wastewater to test the risk of high-impact variants and indirect effects of vaccination. Our pioneering approach tackles existing socioeconomic inequalities and gender disparities with an additional focus on boys and men. This transdisciplinary strategy pushes the boundaries of OneHealth in practice, with the potential of serving as a blueprint for effective prevention and multi-system surveillance of infectious diseases in the urban environment more generally.

*The collaboration between Ivona Brandic and Peter van Oostrum began unexpectedly at the TU Kindergarten: It all started a few years ago while they were baking Christmas cookies with their children, when Peter introduced Ivona to the concept of holographic microscopy.

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