Campus remedies

How innovative minds in universities are designing solutions for critical problems

The Spinoff Prize is a new attempt to reward commercialisation of discoveries in university labs. It is administered by Nature magazine. The first edition of the prize was launched in November 2019, with 150-odd applications. To be eligible, commercialisation and corporatisation must have started post November 2016.

The jury shortlisted 12 applications for a “pitch slam”, where they present to the jury. That list will be pruned to four companies for a live slam today (July 13) as part of the Future Insight Virtual Event sponsored by Merck. The winner of the 2020 Nature Spin-off Prize will receive a modest grant of €30,000 (about US$34,000) and bragging rights worth several magnitudes of the grant.

Brief descriptions of the 12 finalists follow:

CageCapture designs tiny, porous structures to trap molecules. By controlling size, shape and functional chemical groups, the “cage” molecules can capture different pollutant. It can be adapted for use in water filtration as well as air. Ming Liu, CageCapture co-founder and chief technical officer worked with Andrew Cooper at the University of Liverpool’s Materials Innovation Factory. The cages are made of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, bonded to form four-sided pyramids. Functional molecules, like methyl groups, are added as needed. The first target is formaldehyde — the company claims its cages are 500 times as efficient as the current charcoal filters in use.

Caristo Diagnostics uses algorithms to analyse data in computed tomography (CT) scans. This enables it to assess inflammation and calculate the likelihood of a heart attack. Chief Scientific Officer, Charalambos Antoniades is a cardiologist at the University of Oxford.

EpiVario is from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can recur for years after the trauma occurred, and it affects the ability to sleep, work or maintain relationships. It affects 5-10 per cent of the population. Co-founders Philipp Mews and Shelley Berger focus on chemical modifications to chromosomal DNA and histone proteins to prevent traumatic memories from being stored long term.

EraCal Therapeutics is from the University of Zurich and Harvard University. The name comes from “erase calories”. The company is focussed on appetite suppressants for tackling obesity.

Forkhead BioTherapeutics is from Columbia University. Forkhead is trying to induce restarting insulin production in type 1 diabetes. It will induce cells that usually produce the hormone, serotonin, to produce insulin as well. It’s founded by Domenico Accili, an endocrinologist at Columbia.

MiWEndo is from the University of Pompeu Fabra, the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies, all in Barcelona. It plans to augment colonoscopy with microwave imaging to improve polyp detection and malignant tissues. Chief technology officer Marta Guardiola is an electrical engineer.

Oxford Brain Diagnostics is from Oxford. It uses a form of MRI called diffusion tensor imaging, to measure dispersion of water in tissues. This can measure disruption to the brain and cortex, which gives early warning signs of dementia.

PredictImmune is from Cambridge. Clinical immunologist Kenneth Smith found biomarkers, which can accurately predict if inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) will be long term. Using machine learning, the researchers found 17 genes, which identify the chances of long-term IBD, which needs aggressive treatment.

Scailyte is from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. Chief executive Peter Nestorov calls it a “biomarker factory”. Scailyte combines two fields. One is single-cell biological analysis, which gathers data on individual cells through RNA sequencing. The second is neural networks. Scailyte works on CellCnn, a neural-network algorithm written by computational biologist Manfred Claassen, to detect biomarkers in single-cell data. This could accelerate diagnosis for many conditions, which normally need years to detect.

  

Softsonics is from the University of California, San Diego. It has developed a soft, flexible patch worn on the skin over the carotid artery or jugular vein. This measure blood pressure 24x7 by using ultrasound. Softsonics uses bendable electronics developed by co-founder Sheng Xu, a nanoengineer.

Temprian Therapeutics is from Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois. Vitiligo is an autoimmune disease affecting 50 million. It isn’t life-threatening, but it results in loss of skin pigment, which causes psychological trauma. Co-founder Caroline Le Poole, an immunologist, found a molecule, inducible heat-shock protein 70 (HSP70i), which plays a role in this. By switching one amino acid in the HSP70i sequence, it may be possible to stop or reverse the autoimmune reaction.

Sibel Health is from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Shuai Xu, a dermatologist, has developed soft sensors to monitor vital signs such as heart rate, blood oxygenation and blood pressure on premature infants. The sensors are small, flexible, light and wireless. All the information collected is stored for analysis, allowing researchers to try to develop algorithms for managing vital signs.