On 4–5 November 2025, the SafeTouch consortium gathered at the A4TEC premises in Portugal for the project’s first annual meeting, reviewing progress from the past six months and confirming priorities for the months ahead. Partners shared technical updates, coordinated plans for validation activities, and aligned on “safe-by-design” actions to support responsible development.
Coordinated by the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), SafeTouch brings together a multidisciplinary consortium of leading experts in microfabrication, infection control, biomedical engineering, sustainability, and innovation management. Over its 36-month duration, the project will design, validate, and prepare for commercialisation an intelligent antimicrobial surface technology, the iSafeTouch (iST) microfilm, capable of detecting touch and automatically killing pathogens in milliseconds.
What’s moving forward
- Microfilm platform: The team reported continued advances on the iSafeTouch (iST) microfilms, supported by a new microchip iteration, process improvements, and the first successful chemically hardened glass.
- Efficacy & safety: Preliminary biocompatibility activity assessments have been completed, guiding the design of the next testing rounds.
- Safe-by-design: Partners initiated a hazard assessment of chemicals and materials; an inventory has been compiled to launch the assessment workflow.
What’s next
In the coming months, the consortium will focus on maturing the iST platform, broadening laboratory validation, preparing the hospital pilot rollout, and advancing safe-by-design assessments.
The meeting reinforced the consortium’s shared goal: moving from lab refinements to reliable, scalable protection for high-touch environments.
