IARA Research Colloquium | 29 April 2026 | 10-11 CEST | ONLINE

Documentation

Insights into cross-border cooperation in the field of biomedicine

The IARA Research Colloquium on 29 April 2026 focused on the Interreg IT-AT PROMOS project, which aims to promote and sustainably anchor biomedical research and networking between the two neighbouring countries through a wide range of activities. We were delighted that 31 people attended and showed interest in this partly ‘highly technical’ topic. The focus was on two major areas of the PROMOS project, the results of which are already largely available and were presented.

Learning from PROMOS Innovation Camps

First, Letícia Cotinguiba Silva informed us about the “Tech Transfer Training & Networking” aspect of the project and presented the findings of the evaluation of the PROMOS Innovation Camps.

During one-week “boot camps”, which took place in person in Klagenfurt and Bolzano, early-stage researchers had the opportunity to receive further training on topics such as entrepreneurship, science communication and intellectual property, to network with experts (who participated on-site or via hybrid formats) and with potential corporate or investment partners, as well as to present and discuss their business ideas for founding start-ups.

The Innovation Camps thrived on a mix of lectures, independent work on participants’ own biomedical/medical-technology product ideas, company visits, and informal encounters and discussions. The main aim was to ‘translate’ the ideas developed in the ‘academic world’ into concrete solutions for business and society, and to make them appealing to a ‘real audience’ (at the follow-up ‘innovation meetings’).

Feedback from participants showed that the programme was very well received, with the effective collaboration (“co-creation”) with experts being most highly valued. The question of whether such a face-to-face training format remains relevant and can hold its own against online formats has not been definitively answered and is the subject of further research.

Building on the Innovation Camps, training modules (Micro-credentials) for Master’s and PhD students were also developed as part of PROMOS, which will remain available beyond the end of the project duration.

Reading the Heartbeat: AI-Powered Analysis of Electrical Signals in Cardiac Cells

In the second part of the research colloquium, Christoph Voutsinas presented work on an AI-powered software solution designed to automatically analyze electrical signals from heart cells.

The broader goal is cardiac safety pharmacology: testing whether pharmaceutical compounds affect the electrical behavior of heart cells in potentially dangerous ways. The cells are derived from human stem cells, and their electrical activity is recorded using a technology called Multi-Electrode Arrays (MEA) — essentially a grid of tiny sensors that pick up the signals the cells produce.

The core idea behind the software is full automation: rather than requiring experts to manually examine and interpret each signal, four specialized AI models work in sequence.

To assess performance, the software’s outputs were compared against manual annotations made independently by three experts. 

The results were promising: spike detection was nearly perfect, and timing measurements showed only minimal deviation from the expert reference — well within clinically acceptable limits. 

The software is therefore considered suitable for screening the cardiac safety of pharmaceutical compounds. A second validation step, examining responses to specific drugs, is still ongoing.

Further information & contact

For further information on the research colloquium, please contact Christoph Voutsinas at IARA: C.Voutsinas@nullfh-kaernten.at 

The PROMOS project is led by ICGEB – International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Trieste, Italy.