The student Èric Matamoros, from the Faculty of Biology, awarded in a Huawei competition on technological innovation
“I have always loved the world of molecular biology and computational chemistry, and the bachelorʼs degree on Biochemistry allows me to acquire the knowledge I need. Also, I love discovering biology from a chemical perspective”, says the student Èric Matamoros, first-year student of the bachelorʼs degree in Biochemistry at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona, and awardee of the first prize in the Connected Campus Idea Competition 2017 (CCIC), a competition on technological innovation launched by the multinational company Huawei.
“I have always loved the world of molecular biology and computational chemistry, and the bachelorʼs degree on Biochemistry allows me to acquire the knowledge I need. Also, I love discovering biology from a chemical perspective”, says the student Èric Matamoros, first-year student of the bachelorʼs degree in Biochemistry at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona, and awardee of the first prize in the Connected Campus Idea Competition 2017 (CCIC), a competition on technological innovation launched by the multinational company Huawei.
Award to the best idea in the field of technology in a connected world
The awarded project, by the student Èric Matamoros (Amposta, 1999) is in the winner list of a competition with 86 projects, which awards the best ideas submitted by students from all Europe on information technology, innovation and social impact in 2017. The first prize ─public jury and vote─ was to TBM Tumor Classifier, a tool designed by the UB student and which is able to classify tumors in vivo according to a model based on the use of morphological patterns, obtained out of benign and malignant tumors. In this call, the second and third prizes were given to the projects Smart Sniferr, by the students Erhai Fang (United Kingdom) and Yuxin Liu (Germany), and Bio-based Car, by Cas Verstappen and Yasmin Amel Gharib (Netherlands).
Èric Matamoros remembers he found out about the call for this contest in the website of the University of Barcelona: “And decided to submit his project, which fulfils the requirements and the proposed topics. However, when he started carrying the project out, in 2015, Èric “didnʼt know enough to carry it out, but with research and determination, I got the results I wanted”.
Science, technology and artificial intelligence
The TBM Tumor Classifier, now awarded in an international competition is the result of combining Èricʼs two big passions: science and the world of computers and artificial intelligenc. The student was awarded by the Saint Louis University - Madrid Campus for his research work ─on the effects of methylation in DNA features─ when he was a high school student in Institut Ramón Berenguer IV in Amposta (Montsià).
His interest in the world of science brought him to take part in training activities such as the UB course I tu? Jo, Bioquímica -aimed at high school students, “a great opportunity to get into the world of science, from a theoretic and practical perspective”, notes Èric. “And to decide biochemistry is what I really like, and the discipline I opted for”, he adds.
For more than twenty years, this course -which is coordinated by the lecturer Josep M. Fernández Novell, gets young students closer to the world of biochemistry and molecular biology in the laboratories of the Faculty of Biology. “I would advise others to take this course -adds Èric-, since it is not only a chance to do science but it helps you get to know other students with similar interests in the world of science. With the quality of the courses they offer, you can see the competitive and excellent research the University of Barcelona carried out”.
TBM Tumor Classifier: technological innovation to benefit society
The TBM Tumor Classifier is designed as a complementary hospital tool for the diagnosis of skin cancer. This application, with an accuracy of 83%, also helps any user to have a quick diagnosis on a potential skin cancer. “This new application is a tool to get an early diagnosis that has to be completed with the medical one”, says Èric.
“The oncological monitoring is essential. Also, with the TBM Tumor Classifier we expect to start a new storage service on the Internet, thanks to which the oncologists will store images of patientsʼ tumors so they can monitor the development”, adds the student.
So far, there is a prototype for the TBM Tumor Classifier which is available for computer platforms which are compatible with Windows. “The original idea was to design an app for phone devices, with iOS and Android systems. In fact, this is the project I am now working on in collaboration with Huawei”.
New projects on the horizon of new technologies
In March, Matamoros will travel to China to launch a new collaboration with the company Huawei, organized by CCIC. One of the main objectives is to promote this technological project in the Asian continent and make TBM Tumor Classifier to be available for its users in a near future.
However, the list of projects of this young student of the bachelor degree of Biochemistry of the UB is not over yet. “The TBM Tumor Classifier evolved to the BioAI, an initiative to offer services to medical institutions with artificial intelligence in the field of tumor detection and classification during explorations. BioAI, in particular, will help improving the efficacy of those explorations and will help shaping the profile of the diagnoses in different types of cancer (colorectal, breast, thyroid, skin, etc.)”.
“Another project, which is at its early stage, is about designing a low cost system to detect biomarkers throughout the analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOC) in breath”, says the young student from the Faculty of Biology of the UB.