Bending and breaking membranes for cellular self-defence
Arjen Jakobi (Delft University of Technology)
Intracellular pathogens cunningly exploit their host cells by hiding inside membrane vesicles. The cell can nevertheless sometimes open these vesicles, exposing pathogens to the immune system. This research will use electron microscopy to image this mechanism at high magnifications in order to understand it better.

 Probing the physics of exotic superconductors with microchip Casimir experiments
Richard Norte (Technische Universiteit Delft)
I will use microchips to perform experiments which look at the interplay between two famous quantum effects: Casimir forces and superconductivity. No one knows anything about how the two effects coalesce and now many physicists suspect that this unexplored regime of experiments could be where the next scientific breakthrough lie.