Projects

The overconsumption of sugar is one of the main reasons cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes have reached pandemic proportions. While the obvious solution would be to eat less and make healthier lifestyle choices, the desire for sweetness in our food remains strong. Artificial sweeteners are widely used to lower calorie intake. Several of them, however, are suspected to pose health risks of their own, and many do not taste as well as sucrose, often leaving a lingering off-taste. The development of novel sweeteners is hindered by the scarcity of measurable data on what constitutes an ideal non-caloric sweetener. We aim to develop biochemical assays to determine these metrics, facilitating the discovery of healthy, sustainable, and good-tasting sweeteners.

The rapid emergence of new illegal drugs (HHC, nitazenes, synthetic cathinones, etc.) creates a need for fast, on-site drug testing tools that can detect multiple substances in biofluids. These tools are crucial for clinicians, anti-doping experts, and law enforcement. Multiplexed portable analytical tools have a great potential to be implemented for this purposes. Moreover, such kind of instruments could be utilized in personal healthcare monitoring by enabling early-stage diagnostics of health problems. This project aims to develop electrophoresis-based analytical tools for reliable, fast and cost-effective metabolism studies in vitro, revealing the characteristics and metabolic pathways of new psychoactive substances. Additionally, new on-site biofluid testing tools (focused on oral fluid) will be developed for detecting new drugs. The results of this project will enhance drug monitoring, support public health, and improve safety.

This Centre of Excellence (CoE) focuses on fostering innovation in resource efficiency, promoting circular economy practices, utilizing local resources, ensuring safe material circulation, and educating researchers to reduce environmental impacts. It centers around four key areas: Strategic Mineral Resources (SMR), Carbon-Based Resources (CBR), Circular Technologies Upscaling (CTU), and Circular Business Eco-System and Modeling (CBEM). The SMR group maps critical materials in waste streams, including renewables, for extraction and reuse while minimizing hazardous waste. The CBR group develops ecofriendly pathways for essential chemicals and plastics, also assessing their environmental impact. The CTU group pioneers waste reduction and recycling methods for aqueous, and solid waste, incl. water purification. The CBEM group analyzes sustainable business ecosystems and value chains. This CoE's interdisciplinary approach will benefit both Estonia and Europe by advancing circular economy.

Europe still sees a quarter of the world's cancer cases each year, making cancer the second leading cause of death and illness in the region after cardiovascular diseases. Unless we take decisive action, lives lost to cancer in the EU are set to increase by more than 24% by 2035, making it the leading cause of death in the EU. Cross-border collaboration can address this challenge by combining data from various modalities and sources, extracting meaningful insights to deepen our understanding of cancer. However, ethical, legal, and national regulations, along with data access processes, including differing interpretations of the EU GDPR create significant hurdles. Technical interoperability issues across European cancer RIs, and patients' and citizens' rights to control who uses their personal information and for what purposes further complicate data sharing. The project will provide European researchers, SMEs, and innovators with a decentralized collaborative network, “UNCAN-CONNECT,” for cancer research. It consists of both technical components, a governance, compliance, and operational framework based on the UNCAN blueprint, with the goal of operationalizing it. The objective is to facilitate access to cancer data, promote open science, and revolutionize cancer research and treatment by co-creating an open-source federation of federations platform. It will be developed using specific use cases focused on six major cancer types: Paediatric, Lymphoid malignancies, Pancreatic cancer, Ovarian, Lung, and Prostate cancers and active collaboration with a diverse range of stakeholders,including researchers, SMEs, industrial end users, and citizens. It will build on existing European RIs such as BBMRI as well as initiatives like EOSC4CANCER, CanSERV, EUCAIM, to enable seamless storage, access, sharing, and processing of data across Member States and associated countries. This approach will foster interoperability and collaboration, accelerating progress in cancer research. This action is part of the Cancer Mission clusters of projects 'Understanding' established in 2022.

To sustain life and its quality on Earth, the EU has established several initiatives for the implementation of the Green Deal: Zero Pollution Action Plan, Farm to Fork and Green Deal Industrial Plan, among many others. All of these require significant innovation, based on new knowledge and skills – research, training and education – coupled with industry adaptation, civil society engagement and smart regulation, which is a challenge globally. More importantly, we need significantly more people who can carry out this innovation. The main objective of “Innovative Chemistry and Biotechnology for a Sustainable Future” (INNOCHEMBIO) is to train future experts of sustainable chemistry and biotechnology, helping Europe to take the next steps in the green transition. The solutions and trained experts can reduce the environmental impact of the chemical and agricultural industries, offer eco-friendly analytical techniques, and assess the safety of new materials. This will be achieved through interdisciplinary research projects in an international research environment, collaboration with the industry, the public sector and the civil society, via a comprehensive quadruple-helix based training programme. As a result, our graduates will not only become experts in their respective fields, but leaders and spokespersons. Eventually, through dedicated career planning, we provide skilled workforce to all 4 sectors of the helix. INNOCHEMBIO is an international consortium led by TalTech, with over 100 years of experience in chemistry and biotechnology research and training. INNOCHEMBIO will achieve its objectives by recruiting 15 PhD candidates in up to two calls offering fellowships for 48 months. During this period, the candidates will receive discipline specific training both in Estonia and abroad by working on their research project; broader training through courses offered at TalTech and by our partners; and experience working in the private sector.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and plastic pollution are global emergencies. Small microplastics (sMPs) (> 100µm) cause havoc in nature and are alarmingly prevalent in humans (e.g., placenta, brain, blood, and bone). sMPs also increase the risk of AMR by absorbing other pollutants (e.g., antibiotics) and promoting microbial aggregation and biofilm formation. Making screening and evaluation methods for new antibiofilm compounds widely available is essential. This project aims to develop a sustainable and democratized microfluidics platform to fight sMPs-induced AMR. Droplet-based microfluidics shows great potential for advancing knowledge and tackling this problem, allowing separation and manipulation of samples into thousands of miniscule drops (environments) for parallel studies. By using sustainable droplet technology with novel 3D-printed component for automated screening and evaluation of antibiofilm compounds, the project develops innovative solutions for global challenges.

CoE ENER covers 53% of final energy use in Estonia as well as major energy saving measures with highest investment volumes. CoE aims to contribute to Estonian societal and economic challenge to transform 75% of existing building stock with poor energy performance to zero emission buildings (ZEB) with maximized co-benefits and improved life quality by 2050. The scientific aim is to extend the excellence in ZEB technologies to become the top research centre in equity-enhancing deep renovation, driving disruptive changes and initiating systemic reforms encompassing innovative technologies, novel governance models, novel participatory and collaborative approaches to engage citizens. Interdisciplinary CoE combines engineering, social, data sciences and economics with central focus on energy performance of buildings and districts, electrification and flexibility, renewable energy generation and storage, energy saving measures and business models with their socioeconomic and regional impacts.

Driving Climate Positive Futures (DREAM+PLAN), a truly interdisciplinary, international, and intersectoral PhD program, uniting European and Australian research via 32 doctoral positions, many for double degree. DREAM+PLAN brings together a community of visionary changemakers, leaders, who dream big and develop tangible pathways for solving local and global climate-related challenges, all united by a mission to create a positive impact, towards a more sustainable, fair, inclusive and thriving planet for future generations. The overarching objectives of DREAM+PLAN research training program is to create and deliver, legacy-worthy, novel, cutting-edge, 3i-centric training through best-practice multi-faceted, group and individual training options for DC’s

The demand for advanced data storage is skyrocketing due to unprecedented growth of digital information, energy constraints, and cybersecurity concerns. We propose a scalable, robust, and cost-effective technology for the production of materials through the knowledge-based design of high-entropy MXenes, streamlined synthesis of MXenes functionalized Potassium Sodium Niobate(KNN) ceramics by controllable energy-efficient self-propagating high-temperature synthesis, and development of multilevel encoding technique leveraging different discretized signal intensity and temporal levels. For the first time, we propose a sustainable, clean and high-tech approach to production of HEMXenes added KNN for optical data storage, optical switchers and anticounterfeiting technologies. Integrating luminescence with photochromic properties presents an advanced approach for high-density, multi-level, and rewritable data storage. We provide a rational route from basic research to engineered applications.

Globally, fish have a market value of 150 billion EUR per year. In addition, the implementation of the European Water Framework and Habitats Directives underscores the necessity for long-term environmental monitoring across the European Union. Economically and ecologically significant fish species, such as Salmon and the critically endangered European Eel are both native to Estonia, and their life cycles require migration from marine to freshwater environments. Current academic solutions for fish monitoring are too slow and expensive, and commercial solutions with AI still rely on manual processing of thousands videos at each location. The "AquaID" project aims to develop viable systems capable of automatically detecting and counting wild fish with significantly enhanced performance. This will be achieved through the utilization of custom hardware and underwater artificial intelligence methods developed at TalTech, in collaboration with international academic and commercial partners.

The functioning of the brain is based on neuronal cooperation and communication between different brain regions. Electroencephalography (EEG) functional connectivity (FC) analysis contributes to neuroscience and holds great potential for developing novel biomarkers to objectively assess signs of brain disorders. The project proposes a novel approach to the study of functional network analysis, focusing on the interactions between EEG FC and small-world (SW) organization. The project tests the hypothesis that interactions between FC and SW are related to Default Mode Network (DMN) activity, thereby linking electrode-level EEG features to underlying neurophysiological processes. The project uses biophysical modeling for EEG source-level analysis and machine learning to uncover complex patterns and relationships between FC and SW measures. The FC-SW interaction could lead to the development of a prospective biomarker that may be more specific for differentiating between disorders.

During the development of the mammalian brain, immature neurons undergo a series of complex morphological and functional transitions to become mature neurons integrated into brain circuitry. These processes take place during embryogenesis and early postnatal life, and once neurons have matured, they are typically not replaced over the course of an organism’s lifetime. The chromatin landscape undergoes dramatic changes during neuronal maturation, including dynamic changes in chromatin 3D architecture and epigenetic modifications that control developmental gene expression programs. My laboratory studies how epigenetic mechanisms control neuronal identity and function throughout life: from setting the pace of the developmental progression during maturation to the maintenance of neuronal gene expression and function in adulthood and ageing. Specifically, we focus on two projects: 1. Histone bivalency in developing and adult neurons. We recently showed that histone bivalency, the colocalization of activating and repressive histone modifications, regulates the timing of gene expression programs during neuronal maturation. Our studies on the cerebellum revealed that if bivalency is perturbed, developing neurons skip glial-guided migration, an essential step in cerebellar cortex formation, and instead undergo premature maturation. As the next step, we are identifying novel bivalency regulators and exploring how bivalency is regulated in mouse and human neurons. 2. Chromatin dynamics in developing and ageing neurons. Changes in the epigenetic landscape and chromatin interactions that occur during neuronal maturation establish the transcriptional programs that regulate neuronal function. Our unpublished work has revealed a striking redistribution of the repressive histone modification H3K27me3 during neuronal maturation. We are currently studying how global and local changes in H3K27me3 control chromatin interactions, gene expression, and neuronal identity during neuronal maturation, adulthood, and ageing. These studies are expected to yield insight into the fundamental mechanisms that regulate chromatin architecture and gene expression in the developing, adult, and ageing brain.