Programme details

Introduction

The Descartes Award, inaugurated at the dawn of the 21st century as a Fifth Framework Programme initiative, is meant as an instrument to promote European research resulting from cross-border cooperation.
This inter-State synergy is a key element to enable still faster and more effective development of sciences and technologies.
This award is open to all fields of scientific enterprise, including economics, with an annual allocation of one million euros. It is intended to encourage major, very high quality research projects. Between 2000 and 2003, as many as 9 projects, involving 65 teams from 19 countries, of which 7 are outside Europe, have already won this honour.
In this film the 9 rewarded projects are presented, the research teams explored all fields of scientific research, from infinitely tiny, research on the human body to infinitely huge, understanding the mystery of the universe.

Health

The human body: an infinitely small universe with a host of unsolved mysteries. Gradually, medical sciences are unravelling the complexity of this incredible machine and its fascinating processes.

1.1 XPD Gene

The Research

Today the team consists of four groups from the UK, the Netherlands, Italy and France and their work is focused on the XPD gene. This gene is particularly interesting because defects in the genes surprisingly can give rise not just to one disease, which is usually the case, but to three different diseases: Xeroderma Pigmentosum which is highly cancer prone and Cockayne Syndrome and trichotthiodystrophy, which are quite different and cancer free.
And the explanation for this surprising observation came from another surprising discovery, namely that the XPD protein, the proteins are the molecules in the cell that do all the work, had not just one function as it is the case for most proteins, but had two, or even three different functions. It is involved firstly in repairing damage produced in cellular DNA by sunlight, and secondly in the process of transcription. This is the process whereby the genetic information in the DNA is read of to make proteins. From the results of research, the team is already able to help doctors in the diagnosis of these conditions.

Winning The Descartes Prize

Professor Alan Lehmann (University of Sussex, UK): Of course it was a great honour to receive the Descartes Prize. It improved the prestige of our laboratories. It also assisted us in applying for new& and successfully applying for new research grants and it provided a nice pot of money to assist our current research.

The Future

Professor Alan Lehmann (University of Sussex, UK): Well, you know, scientists are like explorers. We are always looking for interesting things but we dont know what we are going to find. In the context of the XPD project, we hope well understand why patients with Xeroderma Pigmentosum get cancer whereas those with trichotthiodystrophy do not. In the longer term, we hope to, along with other colleagues, understand everything there is to know about how cancer develops and why we age. And when we obtain this knowledge, we will be in a much better position to both prevent and cure cancer and to ameliorate some of the less pleasant aspects of aging.

1.2 Development of New Drugs Against HIV

The Research

If we want to develop efficient products that inhibit multiplication of the virus we need a good understanding of the various stages of the virus infection process and of the structure of the proteins that are virus specific.
The team collaborated mainly with researchers from Belgium, Spain, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Great Britain and Italy.
They succeeded in developing new targets and new products that are active against HIV. Products were found that can inhibit the virus very effectively. The name of one of these products is tenofovir, that can inhibit reverse transcriptase, a virus-specific enzyme.

Winning The Descartes Prize

Professor Jan Balzarini (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium): The financial support we received with the Descartes prize enabled us to expand research and coordination between the various teams.
It also enabled us to collaborate, within the project, with other excellent European groups. The collaboration between the various teams has led to the discovery of new targets to efficiently inhibit the virus.

The Future

Professor Jan Balzarini (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium): Recently the FDA (Food and Drug Administration, USA) and the European EMEA (European Medicines Agency) gave their approval for administering these products to AIDS patients. Together with our team-mates we've also tackled the resistance problem of HIV and formulated new ways of improving suppression of the virus.
Our colleagues in Prague have designed a variant of one of our products, the advantage of which is that it is not only very active against HIV but also against numerous other important viruses. We have also discovered a new group of products that could inhibit the virus in two places in its multiplication cycle.
And finally, we and our teams are currently working on an entirely new type of pro-drug molecules that should make it possible to administer existing anti-HIV drugs to patients in a more efficient way.

1.3 Multiple Sclerosis

The Research

Patients with multiple sclerosis have symptoms such as sensation disturbances and paralysis, because the nerve myelins no longer function properly. The nerve myelins have been damaged by the immune system, which is surprising because the immune system normally respects "self'" tissue and only attacks an incoming virus. However, in multiple sclerosis patients the immune system is confused and no longer be able to distinguish between an incoming virus and the body's myelins around the nerves. With X-ray crystallography we have shown that the part of the immune system called T cells cannot distinguish between protein fragments from the virus and the body's own tissue.
The team collaborated with partners from 4 different European countries: Scotland, England, Denmark and Sweden. In addition, we have collaborated with partners from the US.

Winning The Descartes Prize

Professor Lars Fugger (John Radcliff Hospital, UK): Obviously we were very happy and proud to receive the Descartes Prize because it was a clear recognition of our research efforts.
It was, however, an even greater satisfaction to learn that patients with multiple sclerosis also saw this as an additional chance for new medication to be developed for them. The money we received in connection with the prize has made it possible for us to strengthen our collaboration even more and that we are naturally very happy about.

The Future

Professor Lars Fugger (John Radcliff Hospital, UK): So its quite clear that the design of new drugs to treat multiple sclerosis will be helped tremendously by having really detailed pictures of the immune components that cause the disease. And that is why a major part of this project is to use x-ray crystallography.

Technology at The Service of Daily Live

Technology is continually attempting to improve our daily live, but the stakes are very high. To contribute to sustainable development, every technological innovation should ideally respect three guidelines: efficiency, profitability and ecology.

2.1 Plastic Transistors

The Research

The consortium for this consisted of various research institutions and universities and the countries they originated from were Denmark, Germany, UK and the Netherlands.
The team developed a technology to make polymeric integrated circuits. The are two key ingredients, the first one is the use of conducting and semi-conducting polymers which are soluble. This allowed to make in a very easy way such as thin coats, thin films over large areas. Secondly we developed a technology to pattern these thin films. The combination of these two allowed the fabrication of polymer integrated circuits.
The main advantage of this technology is that it only takes a few hours to process a whole wafer. This in comparison with silicon technology where it can take weeks before the dyes come out of the factory.

Winning The Descartes Prize

Doctor Dago De Leew (Philips Research Laboratories): My reactions on winning the Descartes Prize were about as follows: first I like the recognition for the consortium and for my research group at Philips Research laboratories. Secondly, I liked it for my wife, Sara and my kids Rebecca and Natasha as an explanation for all the time spent at the labs.

The Future

Doctor Dago De Leew (Philips Research Laboratories): The application we have in mind is ambient intelligence. Displays and electronics in your house invisible, the key words are wearable electronics, the connected home.
But also: Flexible bar codes on every package enabling that the moment you pass the gate, the bill is made. The next step will be flexible e-books.

2.2 Assymetric Catalysts

The Research

This project involved scientists working in England, France, Germany, Russia and Armenia.
Many chemicals exist in two different forms which are related to one another as a left and a right hand or as an object and its mirror image. These two forms often have different biological properties. One might be a very desirable drug, while the other might be totally inactive or even toxic.
The breakthrough was to develop a new technology called asymmetric catalyst which allows us to prepare just one of the two forms of the chemical. This allows the process to be more cost-effective and produces a significantly less waste than previous methodologies.

Winning The Descartes Prize

Doctor Michaël North (Kings College, UK): All of the partners in our research project were both delighted and honoured when they heard we had been awarded with the 2001 Descartes Prize. They were also extremely pleased that the associated research grant would allow our collaboration to continue for another few years. I divided the research funds up equally between each of the five partners and each of them used the funds as they thought would be best for the research.

The Future

Doctor Michaël North (Kings College, UK): The project is now being developed as a collaboration between the groups who won the Descartes Prize and Avecia. Since the award of the Descartes Prize in 2001, Avecia has assumed responsibility for commercializing the process. They have already taken out two patents on our technology and the third patent is currently in preparation. They are also funding ongoing research into the use of recent application of catalyst.

2.3 Polymer Light Emitting Diodes for Displays

The Research

To make devices with polymer semiconductors, polymers are dissolved up with a solvent, so that they can be treated like paint or ink. A light emitting diode is fabricated by painting a film of polymer in its solution and then evaporating the solution off to leave behind a film on a bottom substrate. The diode is completed by depositing metal on top. And thats usually by evaporating metal in a vacuum. When a full colour display has to be made, red, green and blue diodes are needed very close together so that we can have the three subpixels that make out the three primary colours for white light. And to do that we formulate the semi-conducting polymer solution so that we can treat it like an ink which we can inkjet print so that we print a red drop where we want a red light emitting diode and a green drop and a blue drop for the other two colours. And in that way, we can get the full patterning to produce the full colour display in a very convenient and cheap way.
To develop new sorts of devices, the team used academic partners in Belgium and in Sweden and to develop the engineering towards products, we have partners in the UK and in Germany and in the Netherlands.

Winning The Descartes Prize

Professor Sir Richard Friend (University of Cambridge): The Descartes Prize is unusual because its awarded for a team rather than for an individual. But thats very appropriate for lots of the ways science is done now, its very appropriate for our project. Because we really had to pull together science and engineering from many disciplines to pull off what we have pulled off. And it has been very good within our team to have been able to see recognition for this team effort.

The Future

Professor Sir Richard Friend (University of Cambridge): For in the future, there are many things which will happen, but a lot of it will be driven by the synergy between the development of the underline science and the development of the technology in the manufacturing. The science we know a lot, but there is a lot that we will learn more about and in particular that will enable us to make our light emitting diodes much more efficient. And on the manufacturing side, we have demonstrated that inkjet printing works but the next stage is to show how that could be made to give low cost manufacturing so that we can scale from where we are at the moment with rather smaller displays to very large displays, so that we can move of displays made on glass substrates to displays made on plastic substrates, so that displays become flexible.


3. Understanding The Universe

The immensity of space has always fascinated man. Breakthroughs in scientific research will help us to understand the Universe.

3.1 Chemistry Close to Absolute Zero

The Research

This project is the result of collaboration between the University of Rennes, France and the University of Bir;imgham, UK. The team used a techmique called CRESU which makes it possible to study physico-chemical processes at extremely low temperatures.
The CRESU technique consists of an experimental chamber using powerful pumps, a supersonic flow is created by discharging gas from a tank. In this flow, the thermal energy is converted into kinetic energy, which causes a considerable lowering of the temperature. But the key feature of this technique is the use of convergent-divergent nozzles which make it possible to generate an extremely uniform flow that forms a chemical reactor that is ideal for very low flow temperatures. In order to measure the speeds of radical reactions in the CRESU apparatus it was necessary to devise the new experiment from methods. This uses two pulse lasers, the first laser pulse splits the molecule that we have included in the gas float, creating the radicals. The second laser pulse causes those to fluesce, to emit light and the intensity of that signal reflex the concentration of the radicals. So by varying the time delay between this sequence of pulses, we get a record of how the radical concentration varies with time and can infer the reaction ray.

Winning The Descartes Prize

Professor Ian Smith (University of Bir;imgham, UK): We were delighted when in the year 2000 the European Commission recognised this by awarding us one of the first Descartes Prizes. The award has allowed us to continue and indeed expand our studies of low temperature processes and their relevance to interstellar chemistry.

The Future

The Research Team: Our colleagues encourage us to continue along this path, to continue to face the challenge and go to even lower temperatures. Indeed, at even lower temperatures molecules are even more sensitive to forces that attract or repel them. We believe that by studying molecular collisions even closer to absolute zero, we will see very interesting phenomena, perhaps even unexpected ones. In the domain of the temperatures that we have studied up till now, i.e. around -260 degrees, the international community is currently developing important resources such as the ALMA project, a network of 64 radio telescopes installed on a large plateau at very high altitude in Chile.
This means of observation enables us to see the interstellar environment and the zones where stars are formed with a resolution and precision never seen before and to better understand the newness of stars, their planetary cortege and the complex chemistry of the environment.

3.2 Gamma Ray Burst

The Research

The determination of the precise origin of gamma ray flashes could only be realised thanks to close collaboration between groups in six European countries: Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, England, Germany and Spain and also the United States.
An important tool for the research was the BeppoSAX satellite, launched on 30th April 1996. Thanks to BeppoSAX we know that gamma flashes occur when heavy stars explode, during which the elements from which our body is made are also produced: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron. Being extremely brilliant, gamma flashes can be seen over enormous distances in space, back to very early in time, to the creation of the star systems. The big breakthrough achieved by BeppoSAX in the area of gamma flashes was thanks to a combination of three things.
The gamma radiation monitor, built by Italian colleagues, in the satellite. These wide-angle X-ray cameras built by SRON in the Netherlands, that could determine the position of the gamma source in the sky very precisely. And the fact that these positions were available very quickly. This combination of precision and speed made it possible to detect and locate the gamma flashes.

Winning The Descartes Prize

Doctor Edward Van Den Heuvel (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands): The Descartes prize, being the highest European prize for science, is, of course, fantastic recognition of the work from our collaboration and of the discoveries made with the BeppoSAX satellite.
There is also the financial aspect. We invested the 500,000 euro in a number of new projects, a spectrograph for ESO's Very Large Telescope, the development of X-ray detectors for satellites, Italy and the Netherlands, robotic telescopes and also theoretical work. And with this investment we've been able to generate millions in extra subsidy for the development of these instruments.

The Future

Doctor Edward Van Den Heuvel (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands): Our collaboration has identified the gamma flash of 29th March 2003 as coming from a star explosion in a star system 2 billion light years away. Lots of gamma flashes coincide with such large star explosions that are so bright that, in theory, they enable us to look at the dawn of time, about 300 million years after the Big Bang, when the first stars were created. Our biggest telescopes are currently not able to see these first generation stars but we expect that, with the Swift satellite, it will be possible to look back to these very early times in space, to the Dark Ages, and see how the first stars and star systems were formed.

3.3 Nutation

The Research

Nutations are the variations in the orientation of the Earth in space.
They are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon, the sun and the other planets on the oblate Earth. The Earth is rotating. So it reacts like a top and makes a wide movement in space, called precession and nutation.
The old nutation model made it possible to calculate the orientation of the Earth in space to within a few metres. The new nutation model makes it possible to calculate the orientation of the Earth in space to within a few centimetres.
The model worked out by the work group takes into account all the gravitational interactions between the planets and the Earth and also the interactions between the various layers within the Earth.
The interactions between the atmosphere, the oceans and the solid Earth are also taken into account in the creation of the model.
The countries that have taken part in this collaboration are Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Poland, the Czech republic, Ukraine and Russia.
Apart from these European countries, non-European countries such as the United States, Japan, China and India, have also taken part in this collaboration.

Winning The Descartes Prize

Professor Veronique Dehant (Royal Observatory, Belgium): What the Descartes prize has given us is essentially visibility. No one knew that in order to calculate precise positioning it is necessary to have systems of reference, terrestrial and celestial, and know the relationship between the two, the nutation.
So, essentially, visibility. Of course, we also received some money, which we used to exchange researchers within the European Community to improve research in the area of nutation.

The Future

Professor Veronique Dehant (Royal Observatory, Belgium): The applications of our work are multiple.
For example, if astronomers want to determine the position of stars they need to know the precise orientation of the Earth in space. Geophysicists, if they use satellites orbiting the Earth, also have to know the orientation of the Earth in space. This is currently of even more interest since Europe decided to send up its own positioning system, the Galileo system.
The following job for our work group is to apply itself to the next decimal. To do that, we must concern ourselves with the coupling and the refining of it between the liquid core and the crust and the liquid core and the particle. The work group recently took an interest in the planet Mars because the variations in its orientation in space are very similar to those of Earth.

4. Conclusion

Medical research, improving our daily lives, exploring the universe. &
The Descartes prize for excellent scientific research recognizes an impressive range of research fields.
Finalists are chosen from a selection of projects submitted to a scientific committee of experts and assessed on the basis of the quality of results obtained, their contribution to solving scientific problems and to key technologies, their degree of innovation and their contribution to the state of knowledge. Then, they are evaluated by the Descartes Prize Grand Jury consisting of personalities from the academic and industrial worlds and from public life, to reflect the broad spectrum of disciplines and scientific excellence.
Cross-border cooperation is a determinant factor in the final choice, since it is essential to developing scientific projects on a certain scale.