AcouSort AB (publ) and its collaborators are now finishing the 4-year BioWings project which has developed new thin-film materials generating the ultrasound necessary to move cells in AcouSort's chips. The new materials enable more cost efficient and large-scale manufacturing. They are also the fundament of the new SEK 26 million AcouSome project, where a consortium led by AcouSort will develop chips to find exosomes in blood for research and future diagnostics.

The two projects are presented in a free webinar December 12. In April 2018, AcouSort was awarded EUR 180,000 in EU funding for participation in BioWings – a project targeting the development of new materials for generating ultrasound in biomedical devices. BioWings has been coordinated by the Technical University of Denmark and involved universities and private companies from Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Israel, and Italy.

The total project has received EUR 3 million funding from EU and was completed on November 30, 2022. AcouSort's role in the project has been to design acoustofluidics chips to be used together with new materials for ultrasound generation. The development of the new chips has been made in close collaboration with Professor Thomas Laurell's research group at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Lund University.

Professor Laurell's team has evaluated how well the new materials work for applications in clinical diagnostics such as the separation of bacteria from blood samples for the diagnosis of blood poisoning (sepsis). The technology developed in the BioWings project is very promising. Material researchers at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), the Weizmann Institute, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and PIEMACS have developed films which are thinner than a hair and which can be manufactured directly onto the acoustofluidic chips.

The thin film materials can advance AcouSort's technology to a new level as they offer advantages in terms of reduced manufacturing costs as well as improved precision and repeatability in large scale production. The technological achievements have not gone unnoticed. The inventions in the BioWings project were picked up by the EU Innovation Radar and now form the basis for new AcouSort patent applications as well as the new AcouSome project coordinated by AcouSort starting in January 2023.

It will use technology from the BioWings project to develop technology to find exosomes in blood for research and diagnostics. The AcouSome project has been awarded SEK 26 million by the European Innovation Council.