Two projects led by professors from the UC School of Engineering were selected in the 2024 call of the Fondecyt Exploración competition, which provides funding for collaborative proposals that aim to develop disruptive scientific and technological research, with a high degree of uncertainty and great potential impact.
The professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering, Rodrigo Cádiz, in collaboration with the academic from the School of Medicine, Marcelo Andía, lead the project “Sound renaissance in medicine: Recovering the power of sound waves for cardiopulmonary disease monitoring and autonomous intelligent ultrasound”, which seeks to revitalize the use of sound signals in medical diagnosis, which have been progressively replaced by biochemical analysis and medical image processing
Specifically, the researchers propose to leverage recent advances in sound processing and artificial intelligence to deliver new noninvasive solutions for telematic cardiorespiratory monitoring and ultrasound imaging in an autonomous, operator-free manner. The project includes the design and manufacturing of devices that will enable the application of these techniques in patients for early detection and monitoring of cardiorespiratory and pulmonary disorders, providing swift and accurate predictions of disease progression in conditions such as acute respiratory infections (e.g. influenza, COVID-19), chronic/acute respiratory diseases (e.g. pulmonary fibrosis, asthma, respiratory failure), and heart failure.
On the other hand, the project “Electrostimulation for enhanced anaerobic nitrogen removal: Simultaneous iron-mediated anaerobic ammonium oxidation and nitrate-dependent ferrous oxidation (NDFO)”,led by Professor Eduardo Leiva of the Department of Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering, in collaboration with Professor Jennyfer Serrano at Universidad Mayor, consists of optimizing the removal of contaminating nitrogen compounds from wastewater through a new chemical-biological process that combines anaerobic ammonium oxidation coupled to iron reduction (Feammox) with nitrate-dependent iron oxidation (NDFO), also using electrical stimulation to accelerate the electron transfer involved in the coupling of both processes
This new method of wastewater treatment with microorganisms capable of carrying out electrochemical processes necessary for the removal of contaminating nitrogen compounds has the potential to revolutionize water treatment systems, making them not only more competitive in terms of efficiency and cost but also much more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
