Johan Guns
UZ Brussel · EU Regulatory Affairs
Co-author of the publications that opened the European regulatory debate on biological IAQ standards. His work positions AWLabs as the technological answer regulators are looking for.
Detecting the invisible.
AWLabs turns invisible airborne biological risk into governed, auditable decisions for hospitals, pharmaceutical sites, and critical buildings.
The organisation
We are a laboratory.
AWLabs is a Belgian applied-research organisation working on one unsolved problem: reading airborne biological risk in real time, in the environments where an undetected hour is most expensive. The laboratory sits at Biopark Charleroi. Roughly 70% of its research is carried by competitive public funding, its analytical methods are validated by accredited reference institutions rather than by us, and the two instruments it has built are patent-protected.
- An unregulated variable: European indoor-air rules cover chemistry and comfort, not biology
- A method no one can buy: capture, assay, and instrument have to be developed together
- Validated outside our own walls, by the institutions that set the reference methods
Where we stand
Progress you can audit.
€1.9M+
Active EU grants and pipeline
10LOIs
Hospital contracts in conversion, 2026
6+POCs
Hospital deployments across 3 continents
2Patents
AirShield and Sentinel, filed Q1 2026 via Calysta
~70%
Of R&D covered by public grants
€700K
PANDA: AWLabs as EU consortium coordinator
The technology
Two instruments. One system.
AirShieldContinuous air risk governance
SentinelReal-time pathogen detection
Governance layerValidated methods, one audit trail
Auditable decisionsHospitals, pharma, critical buildings
Sentinel
The only platform detecting airborne pathogens in real time.
- Detects pathogens themselves, not particle counts or proxies
- Built for ICUs, operating rooms, isolation and clean rooms
- In development, with hospital proofs of concept on three continents
- Not a certified diagnostic device, and not described as one
AirShield
The layer already in the field, and the data it returns to the bench.
- Continuous multi-zone measurement of biological and environmental signals
- Analytics that turn raw air data into a defensible risk position
- Audit-ready evidence for regulators, certifiers, and insurers
- Running in real critical environments, which is what Sentinel is developed against
The record
Checkable, not assertable.
Everything this site claims is on one page, with the references to check it. Nothing here is a number we produced about ourselves.
Grants & public funding
€1.9M+ active and in pipeline, including EU Horizon consortium coordination.
Patents
AirShield and Sentinel, both filed Q1 2026 via Calysta.
Publications
Joint work with UZ Brussel that opened the European debate on biological IAQ standards.
Field deployments
Named clinical and research partners on three continents, plus the LOI position.
The scientists
The people who validate the method.
AWLabs does not validate its own method. A Board of Scientific Advisors of European reference figures does.
Carlo Iorio
Head of CREST Lab, ULB
Leads the Belgian reference laboratory for indoor air quality. A long-term scientific validation partner: his accreditation underwrites the analytical methods inside AirShield.
Profiles and wording pending written sign-off by each advisor.
The network
Who we work with.
Clinical & hospital partners
Institutional & scientific
Commercial partners
Public funding
Next step
Ask us something technical.
There is no gated deck and no sales sequence behind this. Investors, research institutions, clinical partners, and journalists reach the same place, and the person who answers is the person who did the work.