High-throughput ultrasound-based volumetric 3D printing for tissue engineering
Prof. Daniel Ahmed
Daniel Ahmed is a Professor of Acoustic Robotics in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich. Currently, he is the Director of the Acoustic Robotic Systems Lab (ARSL), located in the Binnig and Rohrer Nanotechnology Center, and is engaged in developing cutting-edge ultrasound microrobotics for use in life science applications, diagnostics, and translational medicine. Daniel holds Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degrees in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Pennsylvania State University.
He was selected as one of ten winners of the Falling Walls Science Breakthrough of the Year 2021 in Engineering and Technology. Daniel actively engages in patenting numerous discoveries stemming from his research endeavors, with the intention of creating spinoff ventures. Recently, Daniel has been awarded for the Dandelion Entrepreneurship Awards at ETH Zurich. Recently, he has founded a startup SonoRobotics.
Prof. Salvador Pané i Vidal
Prof. Dr. Salvador Pané i Vidal (Barcelona, 1980) is currently a Professor of Materials for Robotics at the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) and Co-​Director of the Multi-​Scale Robotics Lab at ETH Zürich. He received a B.S. (2003), M.S (2004) and a PhD in Chemistry (2008) from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) in the field of the electrodeposition of magnetic composites and magnetoresistive alloys. He became a postdoctoral researcher at IRIS in August 2008 and Senior Research Scientist in 2012. He has authored or co-​authored more than 150 articles in international peer-​reviewed journals and books for education in science.
Dr. Pané is currently working on bridging chemistry and electrochemistry with robotics at small scales. In the field of micro-​ and nanororobotics, his major focus has been the miniaturization of magnetic materials and conductive polymers and hydrogels for targeted drug delivery. He is the head of the MSRL electrochemistry laboratory at ETH, which he established in 2010. At present, he teaches a course on nanorobotics and supervises several on-​going PhD theses. He has established successful international collaborations with several research groups and companies and institutions (Hirtenberger AG, IGS Research, EMPA, Steiger AG).
Dr. Pané is/has been the coordinator for a FET Open project (MANAQA), and a FET Proactive (ANGIE). In June 2013, Dr. Pané was awarded the highly competitive Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). The grant provides 1.5 million euros over five years to investigate composite nanomaterials with magnetoelectric properties for chemical and biomedical applications. From 2015 to 2019, he was the Chair of the COST Action “e-​MINDS: Electrochemical processing methodologies and corrosion protection for device and systems miniaturization” which brings together more than 40 European academic and industrial participants related to the areas of electrochemical manufacturing and corrosion science. Since 2016, he has been serving on the board of editors in the journal Applied Materials Today (Elsevier). He represents Switzerland in the European Academy of Surface Technology (EAST). He is also co-​founder of the startups Magnes AG and Oxyle AG. In November 2017, he was awarded a Consolidator Grant (ERC). The Grant provides 2.0 million euros over five years to develop gated porous nanorobots that can be remotely instructed to produce electrical fields. In future, these nanorobots could be used in the spinal cord or the optical nerve. In 2019, Dr. Pané was honored with the Big-​on-Small Award at the International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales (MARSS). He also received the ERC Proof-​of-Concept grant (2019) to develop magnetoelectric reactors for water cleaning applications.
Mahmoud Medany
Mahmoud Medany is a PhD student and research assistant at the Acoustic Robotics Systems Lab (ARSL), ETH Zürich. His work spans control systems, electronics, microparticle manipulation, microfluidic device fabrication, and ultrasound-assisted 3D printing.
He holds a Master’s degree in Automation and Control Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, where his thesis focused on applying reinforcement learning to control ultrasound-driven microrobots in complex flow environments. As part of his academic journey, he completed his thesis at ETH Zürich, developing microfluidic platforms and control circuits for real-time microrobot manipulation using visual feedback and high-speed imaging. He has also taken part in several internships and academic exchanges across research and industry, including the Paul Scherrer Institute, AIRLab at Polimi, Mercedes-Benz, and California Polytechnic State University.
His project experience includes brain-controlled wheelchairs, mobile robots with machine vision for children with disabilities, smart embedded irrigation systems, computational fluid dynamics simulations of medical and industrial flows, and the development of a web-based platform with full documentation and a business plan for a personal startup idea.
