Nijmegen, The Netherlands – November 2025 – NimaGen B.V. has joined the CapCell consortium, a groundbreaking European research initiative funded with €4.5 million by the European Commission's Horizon Europe programme. The four-year project brings together 13 expert organizations from eight countries to develop innovative forensic tools for investigating sexual violence cases.
Addressing a critical societal challenge
Sexual violence remains a widespread issue across Europe, with an estimated 10% of women having experienced it. However, current forensic methods struggle to analyze biological evidence when it contains cells from multiple contributors. This often leaves crimes unresolved and victims without justice.
CapCell (Innovative Forensic Trace Investigation via Microfluidics and Single-Cell Genomics) will develop the first modular forensic toolkit capable of isolating and analyzing individual cells from mixed DNA evidence—enabling single-source DNA profiles even from highly complex samples.
NimaGen's contribution:
"We are proud to contribute our Reverse Complement PCR sequencing technology to this critical mission," says Pieter van Oers, Senior Manager Business Development Forensics at NimaGen. "CapCell's single-cell approach demands exceptional sensitivity and reliability from ultra-low DNA inputs, exactly what our IDseek® chemistry was designed to deliver. We are convinced that our IDseek® MPS Library Preparation Kits have the potential to enable forensic laboratories to extract actionable DNA profiles from individual cells in mixed evidence samples. By combining microfluidics with our simplified NGS workflows, this partnership will bring justice to cases that were previously impossible to solve".
A European collaboration for justice
The CapCell consortium is coordinated by Maastricht University and features top scientists from universities, companies, forensic institutes and police forces across Europe, including:
- Maastricht University (NL)
- KU Leuven (BE)
- Medical University of Innsbruck (AT)
- i3S – Institute for Research and Innovation in Health (PT)
- Netherlands Forensic Institute (NL)
- Estonian Forensic Science Institute (EE)
- Estonian Police and Border Guard Board (EE)
- Austrian Federal Criminal Police (AT)
- COPAN (IT)
- NimaGen (NL)
- Voxdale (BE)
- accelCH (CH)
- EDNAP (GE).
The project launched on 1 October 2025 and runs until 2029.
More information: Visit the CapCell project website at https://capcell.eu/