Draft:The Foundation for Research on Information Technologies in Society

The Foundation for Research on Information Technologies in Society (IT'IS) is a nonprofit scientific research institute in Zurich, Switzerland, established in 1999.

IT'IS has links to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) and the global wireless communications industry (e.g., the Mobile Manufacturers Forum (MMF) and GSMA), and has received research support from Swiss, European, and U.S. funding agencies.

IT'IS is active in working groups of international standards organizations such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and the Cellular Telephone Industries Association (CTIA), is involved in the formulation of safety standards for the wireless industries, and provides regulatory advice regarding the biological effects of EM energy.

Research at the IT'IS Foundation is in the area of computational life sciences to expand the scientific basis for applications of EM energy in wireless information technologies. IT'IS develops tools and methods used by the manufacturers of mobile phones and other wireless devices to assess the absorption of electromagnetic (EM) fields by living tissue.

IT'IS employs about 50 people and shares facilities in Zurich with other members of the Zurich43 (Z43) partnership, which includes the commercial R&D units Schmidt & Partner Engineering AG (SPEAG), Zurich MedTech AG (ZMT), and TI Solutions AG.

History
The IT’IS Foundation was established on November 22, 1999 with the mission to engineer novel and accurate EM measurement methods to be able to provide science-based regulatory advice regarding interactions of EM fields with living tissues. The first foundation board consisted of ETH Zurich professors Ralf Hütter, Albert Kündig, Wolfgang Fichtner, and Niels Kuster, as well as Alexander Borbély (University of Zurich, CH), Masao Taki (Tokyo Metropolitan University, JP), Mirjana Moser (Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, CH), Quirino Balzano (Motorola Inc., USA), Michael Burkhart (Sunrise Communication AG, CH), Michael Milligan (Mobile Manufacturers Forum, BE), and Christophe Grangeat (Alcatel, FR).

2000−2009
During the first decade, IT'IS researchers focused on creating the scientific knowledge base and tools to assess potential health hazards of exposure to EM fields, developing experimental and computational methods, as well as instrumentation and procedures to reliably assess the specific absorption rate (SAR) induced in humans using wireless communication devices. Working closely with engineering partner SPEAG and international research organizations, IT’IS researchers developed and fabricated exposure systems, along with dosimetry and quality assurance (QA) methods, and collaborated on several national and international research programs designed to investigate potential adverse biological effects of EM field exposure. The IT’IS Foundation designed and fabricated exposure setups used in a large National Toxicology Program (NTP) study funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) on the carcinogenicity due to exposure to the EM radiation emitted by mobile phone signals. Several research articles   were published on the results of a long-term collaboration with the sleep laboratory of the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology of the University of Zurich on how radiofrequency (RF) exposure affects the sleep and the awake electroencephalogram (EEG). Together with the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), IT’IS developed a group of anatomically detailed 3D human computational phantoms — the Virtual Family models, consisting of an adult male, adult female, and two children — based on high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of healthy volunteers

In 2005, the IT'IS Foundation presented its research achievements as part of the 150-year anniversary exhibit of the ETH Zurich, Welcome Tomorrow, at the Zurich main train station. Deeper involvement in medical technology research ultimately led to the founding of the spin-off commercial firm ZMT in 2006.

2010−2019
In 2010, the IT'IS Foundation was featured in Technoscope, the "technical magazine for youth and the youthful" of The Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW), an independent organization for the promotion of the engineering sciences. A 2010 IT'IS publication on human exposure to EM fields from energy saving light bulbs was part of a report on the safety of fluorescent bulbs aired by the Canadian investigative newsmagazine television program 16:9 The Bigger Picture.

The foundation continued to develop computational phantoms and, in 2010, more child anatomical models — the Virtual Classroom — were added to the Virtual Family. The addition of Glenn (an elderly male model) and Fats (an obese male model) further extended the model library of computational phantoms, now known as the Virtual Population (ViP). Together with the FDA, IT'IS developed a multimodal imaging-based detailed anatomical (MIDA) model of the human head and neck, which includes representations of eyes, ears, and deep brain structures, as well as several muscles, bones and skull layers, arteries and veins, cranial nerves, and salivary glands. The models are freely available for use in non-commercial projects by research groups around the world.

During its second decade, IT’IS research broadened into applications of computational physics in precision medicine. IT'IS was awarded funding from CTI (now INNOSUISSE) computational medicine with the development of Sim4Life, which was later commercialized by partner ZMT. The project Sim4Life CAPITALIS was nominated for the CTI Swiss Medtech Award in 2015. IT'IS partners with spin-off ZMT for licensing the latest version of the ViP models as part of the Sim4Life simulation platform.

IT’IS co-organized the 2015 meeting of the European Society for Hyperthermic Oncology (ESHO2015) on hyperthermia research. The IT'IS Foundation – together with the Competence Center for Personalized Medicine in Zurich – organized the Latsis Foundation Symposium in 2016, with the title "Personalized Medicine: Challenges and Opportunities" and with additional funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation.

In 2017, the IT'IS Foundation was selected by the NIH to develop the online simulation platform o2S2PARC – Open Online Simulations for Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions, a project funded through the NIH Common Fund’s SPARC program to establish a Modeling and Simulation (SIM-) Core within the SPARC Data and Resource Center.

IT'IS continued to design and produce exposure systems used in investigations to quantify observed biological effects of cells, animals, and humans exposed to EM radiation. The results of the NTP study of rodents on the risks of exposure to wireless devices were published in 2018, and IT'IS representatives participated in the peer review of the technical reports. IT’IS investigations on 5G exposure led to the development of novel measurement instrumentation and phase reconstruction algorithms to analyze the power density in the very close near-field of transmitters, which has been commercialized by SPEAG. Research into the absorption of millimeter-waves by the skin and the resulting temperature increase draws attention to potential hazards associated with exposure to 5G wireless devices, work that has been covered in the Swiss press.

IT'IS also performs research in the area of MRI technology to analyze the risks of RF exposure, especially in the context of medical implant safety. , and since 2017, on temporal interference (TI) and has founded a new spin-off company, TI Solutions AG, in Zurich.

2020−
With NIH funding, IT'IS continues to manage the o2S2PARC platform, which has a growing number of users and hosted projects. The computational modeling pipeline developed by IT’IS was a key component in clinical studies to use spinal cord neuromodulation to restore trunk and leg motor function in patients after complete paralysis. IT'IS researchers co-authored a 2022 research article on the use of TI stimulation for the treatment of epilepsy and developed the Temporal Interference Planning (TIP) tool, which is used to optimize electrode placement and stimulation conditions for targeted TI stimulation. Two research papers on the use of TI deep-brain stimulation in human subjects, co-authored by IT'IS researchers in collaboration with the EPFL and the UK Dementia Research Institute, were published in Nature Neuroscience in October 2023.

Major projects
Seed funding for the IT'IS Foundation was provided in part by SPEAG and the Mobile Manufacturers Forum (MMF). Partners SPEAG and now also ZMT continue to be reliable sources of funding. Other major funding has been obtained through competitive applications to various Swiss (CH), European Union (EU), and international scientific project funding instruments. Selected major research projects are listed below.

The REFLEX project controversy
The aim of the EU FP5 REFLEX project — Risk Evaluation of Potential Environmental Hazards From Low Frequency Electromagnetic Field Exposure Using Sensitive In Vitro Methods — was to apply advanced methods and procedures developed in toxicology and molecular biology to investigate the basic mechanisms of cellular and sub-cellular responses to exposure to EM energy. The coordinator of the REFLEX consortium was Prof. Franz Adlkofer of the VERUM Foundation; there were 8 biological laboratory partners to perform in vitro experiments, for which the IT'IS Foundation developed the exposure systems in line with its core competencies. Soon after publication of findings from the REFLEX study,    allegations of data falsification, data fabrication, and general scientific misconduct were made against project participants, including the IT'IS Foundation. The assertions, which persisted for more than a decade, were laid to rest by a German court of appeals, whereby the author of the unfounded allegations, was ordered to cease and desist his attacks on the REFLEX findings.