Newsletter · Issue #1 · August 2026
From a dog’s nose to a multimodal chip: SafeDrop is under way
On 18–19 June 2026, the full SafeDrop consortium met at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP to launch our 48-month Horizon Europe project. Ten partners from seven countries are now working together to build a bio-inspired “digital dog nose”: a sensor platform that gives lab-quality chemical results on site, in minutes instead of days.
Consortium at Fraunhofer IAP, 18–19 June 2026
Today’s diagnostics are often too slow, too expensive and too centralised. SafeDrop follows a different sensing paradigm, inspired by canine olfaction: from the dog’s nose to a multimodal chip.
Two days that set the course
The kick-off brought the whole consortium together to agree on objectives, the work plan and the road ahead. Over two days, partners:
Why a “digital dog nose”?
Lab analysis is accurate but slow, centralised and expensive. Portable sensors are fast, but often not selective enough for critical decisions. A dog’s nose solves this differently: instead of one perfect receptor, it reads patterns across many overlapping ones. SafeDrop applies the same principle on a chip.
Each SafeDrop K-cell pairs a silicon-photonic Mach–Zehnder interferometer with a thin-film transistor, giving an optical and an electrical signal from the same spot. An array of 32 K-cells, each with a different coating, produces a rich chemical “fingerprint” that AI then decodes.
Four real-world demonstrators
Meet the consortium
Research institutes, universities and companies covering the whole value chain, from organic-semiconductor chemistry and silicon photonics to readout electronics, AI and field validation.
The road ahead
Coming up: our first consortium webinar is planned for late 2026. Watch our channels for the date.
Stay connected
Follow SafeDrop for news, results, events and open-ecosystem releases. For press or collaboration enquiries, contact the coordinator through the website.
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Co-funded by the European Union
SafeDrop has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101299090 (HORIZON-CL4-2025-04-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HADEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.