Hemagglutinin

The SensUs Organization can proudly say that the international competition is becoming bigger and bigger each year. With a total of fourteen student teams from thirteen different countries from all over the world, the SensUs Competition of 2021 was a huge success. 

The SensUs edition of 2021 was all about Influenza A. The teams competed to win awards for the best and most innovative biosensor to detect Influenza A, better known as the common flu, to prevent the next pandemic. 

Because of the COVID-19 measures, the event was unfortunately online. The live-streamed SensUs Event was presented by the master of ceremonies, Annabel Romijn. The event started with the kick-off pitches that gave the teams the opportunity to introduce themselves and their innovative biosensor designs. Thereafter, the teams presented their biosensors to the professional jury, who judged them on translation potential and creativity.

The Public Inspiration Award winner, chosen by the public via online voting with more than 4000 votes in total, was Team PULSe from KU Leuven from Belgium. As runner-up team TruSense2021 from the Zheijang University from China. 

The award for most creative biosensor was also won by Team PULSe and the runner-up in this category was team SenseNC from the North Carolina State University from the United States of America. 

Thereafter, the Translation Potential Award winner was announced, namely Team T.E.S.T. from the Eindhoven University of Technology from The Netherlands. Team SensSwiss, from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne from Switzerland, was the runner-up. 

Finally, the Analytical Performance Award, determined by the results of the Distributed Testing Event earlier in the week, was won by SenSwiss from Switzerland and the well-deserved runner-up was team AixSense from RWTH Aachen from germany. 

Last year, the SensUs High School Competition was organized by Lucas Rabou and Boudewijn Freens, two of our alumni.

High School students from all over the Netherlands form Teams and take part in the Competition. Each Team designs their own biosensor in the span of about a year. At the end of the Competition, each design is critiqued by a professional jury. The Team which has the best design in the eyes of the jury wins the Competition.

Last year’s theme was respiratory viruses. The high school students were instructed to design a rapid test to detect patients infected with the influenza virus. The jury awarded the team from the Van Maerlantlyceum with first prize, due to their improved design of the already existing lateral flow assay.