# 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 participates 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), contributes to the formulation of safety standards for wireless industries, and advises regulatory agencies regarding the biological effects of electromagnetic (EM) energy.
Researchers at the IT'IS Foundation use computational life sciences to study 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 EM fields by living tissue.
IT'IS employs about 50 people and shares facilities in Zurich with other members of the Zurich43 (Z43) alliance, 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 accurate EM measurement methods and 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) of EM fields induced in humans associated with the use of wireless communication devices. IT’IS researchers have worked with engineering partner SPEAG and international research organizations to develop and fabricate exposure systems as well as dosimetry and quality assurance (QA) methods, and have collaborated on national and international research programs to investigate potential adverse biological effects of EM field exposure. The exposure setups used in the 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 were designed and fabricated by the IT’IS Foundation. IT'IS collaborated 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). IT'IS worked with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to develop 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 2006, the commercial firm ZMT was founded as a spin-off of the IT'IS Foundation.

### 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 IT'IS Foundation added a group of child anatomical computational phantoms to the Virtual Family in 2010, called the Virtual Classroom. The library of computational phantoms was extended by the addition of Glenn (an elderly male model) and Fats (an obese male model) and was renamed the Virtual Population (ViP). The FDA and 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.
IT’IS uses computational physics in precision medicine applications, and was funded in 2010 by Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI; now Innosuisse [de]) to develop the Sim4Life computational platform, which was later commercialized by partner ZMT. The project Sim4Life CAPITALIS was funded in 2013 and was nominated for the CTI Swiss Medtech Award in 2015.
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 U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop the online simulation platform o$^2$S$^2$PARC – 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.
The NTP study on the risks of exposure to wireless devices published in 2018 was carried out with exposure systems designed, produced, and maintained by IT'IS, and IT'IS representatives participated in the peer review of the resulting technical reports. IT’IS investigations on 5G exposure have contributed to the development of novel measurement instrumentation and phase reconstruction algorithms to analyze the power density in the very close near-field of transmitters. IT'IS Foundation research on exposure to 5G wireless devices and the absorption of millimeter-waves by the skin and the resulting temperature increase draws attention to potential hazards.
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. The spin-off company, TI Solutions AG, was founded in 2019 to support research on medical applications of temporal interference (TI).

### 2020−

With NIH funding, IT'IS continues to manage the o$^2$S$^2$PARC platform. The computational modeling pipeline developed by IT’IS was used in a clinical study to apply spinal cord neuromodulation to restore trunk and leg motor function in patients after complete paralysis. IT'IS researchers developed the Temporal Interference Planning (TIP) tool, which is used to optimize electrode placement and stimulation conditions for targeted TI stimulation. TI stimulation has been used to treat epilepsy, and studies have been performed on TI deep-brain stimulation in human subjects in collaboration with the EPFL and the UK Dementia Research Institute.
In 2022, the IT'IS Foundation established the Katja Poković Research Fund (KPRF) to honor the memory of Katja Poković, PhD (1968–2021), who had been the Director of Laboratory and Customer Services of SPEAG from 1999 to 2021. The KPRF offers research fellowships specifically for female applicants as well as funding support for research projects internal to the IT'IS Foundation.

## Major projects

Seed funding for the IT'IS Foundation was provided in part by SPEAG and the MMF; SPEAG and ZMT remain reliable sources of funding. Other major funding has been obtained through competitive applications to Swiss (CH), European Union (EU), and international funding instruments. Selected major research projects are listed below.
| Project Name | Source | Funding Instrument | Award Year |
| PERFORM A | EU | 5th Framework (FP5) | 2000 |
| REFLEX | EU | FP5 | 2000 |
| PERFORM B | International | MMF and GSMA | 2000 |
| PERFORM C | International | MMF and GSMA | 2004 |
| NRP57 | CH | Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) | 2006 |
| HYCUNEHT | CH | CTI | 2006 |
| VT/2007/017 | EU | EU Commission, Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion | 2007 |
| MRI+ | CH | CTI/EUREKA | 2008 |
| SEAWIND | EU | 7th Framework (FP7) | 2009 |
| Sim4Life | CH | CTI | 2010 |
| S4L-Capitalis | CH | CTI | 2011 |
| ARIMMORA | EU | FP7 | 2011 |
| GERoNiMO | EU | FP7 | 2014 |
| RESTORE | CH/EU | Eurostars | 2017 |
| o$^2$S$^2$PARC | USA | NIH SPARC | 2017 |
| NEUROMAN | CH | Innosuisse | 2017 |
| NeuHeart | EU | HORIZON 2020 | 2018 |
| PREP2GO | CH/EU | Eurostars | 2020 |
| OptiStim | CH/EU | Eurostars | 2022 |
| SEAWave | EU | HORIZON Europe | 2022 |

## 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. 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.