Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) – Emerging Technologies Competition Winners
The Royal Society of Chemistry recently announced the winners of its Emerging Technologies Competition which aims to identify the latest technologies in chemical sciences with significant potential impact for the UK economy.
Congratulations go to:
MRC Human Nutrition Centre - Life Sciences overall winner - for new chemistry which has the potential to transform the treatment of anaemia.
Catalytic Technologies Ltd - Environment, Materials and Process Chemistry overall winner -for a new catalyst technology that will have economic, safety and environmental impacts across the supply chain in PET markets.
University of Warwick - Life Sciences winner - for a novel
application of a bio-inspired solution to cryopreserve cells to make much better use of precious donated blood.
Econic Technologies Ltd - Environment, Materials and Process Chemistry winner -for a novel catalyst technology that utilises
waste carbon dioxide in the production of pre-cursor chemicals for the polyurethanes and other industries.
The winning high potential businesses and promising researchers receive one to one, ongoing mentoring from renowned multinational companies, up to £10,000 cash prize and more valuable benefits to transform their nascent technologies into commercial reality.
Dr Aurora Antemir, the Royal Society of Chemistry’s industry programme manager said of the competition, “The process of translating a scientific innovation into a product or service that creates value, or that customers will pay for, is difficult.
“The Royal Society of Chemistry recognises the potential of innovators in the chemical sciences to contribute to economic growth in the UK. But we also recognise that it’s really hard for innovators to make that jump from the lab bench to market because they don’t have the commercial know-how.
“That’s why we set up the Emerging Technologies Competition – to connect the brightest ideas in the chemical sciences with commercial expertise in large multinational companies and to the right business networks to make technologies that have big potential more investment-ready.”
Nano-Iron Supplement to Treat Anaemia Wins Top RSC Award
Researchers at the Medical Research Council’s Human Nutrition Research Unit HNR have developed a new oral iron supplement that uses nanotechnology to mimic the natural structure of dietary iron. The nano-iron supplement, called IHAT aims to treat iron deficiency anaemia by replenishing blood iron stores almost as well as currently available iron supplements without unpleasant gastrointestinal side-effects, according to a report on a new human trial*. The supplement won the overall Life Sciences category of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Emerging Technologies Competition.
Dr Dora Pereira being awarded the prize by Dragons’ Den judge Richard Farleigh and RSC Chief Executive Robert Parker (credit: MPP image creation / RSC)
Dr Jonathan Powell, co-inventor of IHAT and head of the Biomineral Research Group at HNR said: “Current forms of oral iron are either toxic
or expensive, and in some cases both, and these are significant barriers to the implementation of effective oral iron therapy. Patients don’t like side effects and health providers don’t like expensive therapeutics. IHAT is based upon understanding how dietary iron digestion works and all the evidence is that it is safe, side effect-free, well absorbed and cheap to manufacture. These are exciting times.”
Dr Dora Pereira, lead author on the paper and co-inventor of IHAT said: “I am delighted that our novel iron supplement has won the RSC competition; this will raise awareness of the problem of iron deficiency anaemia. We hope to attract further funding to continue trials in humans with the aim of developing an effective and safe treatment for iron deficiency anaemia. After the 10 years hard work that we’ve put into basic research on how natural dietary iron is digested, and using that knowledge as a basis to develop this new technology, I feel very proud to have received this award.”
*In Nanomedicine
31414pr@reply-direct.com
Econic Triumphs in RSC Award Econic Technologies enjoyed
For more information on the competition please visit: RSC Emerging Technologies competition
31413pr@reply-direct.com
Warwick Blood Freezing Technology Wins Double Accolade
Blood freezing technology, developed at Warwick University has won a coveted prize in the Life Science Category at this years’ RSC Emerging Technologies Competition. Developed by Dr Matthew Gibson, Chemistry department (also an honorary Fellow in the Medical School), the technique uses polyvinyl alcohol to inhibit the growth of ice crystals which would otherwise damage blood cells during freezing and make them unusable.
Unlike other cryopreservation technologies, this system does not require the addition of large amounts of solvent, which must then be removed before the blood can be used. That means the blood can be defrosted and put to use rapidly.
“This is a really promising technology that could bring enormous benefits to patients requiring blood transfusions or cellular therapies,” said Dr Laura Lane from Warwick Ventures, the University of Warwick’s Technology Commercialisation Company. “Being shortlisted in the RSC Emerging Technologies competition is a great opportunity for the team to demonstrate their work to a wider audience.” Warwick Ventures has been working with the research team to find commercial partners with the expertise to develop the technique into a clinical application.
Dr Gibson’s project was also granted a Philanthropy Award of £50,000 from Warwick University earlier this year. “The Philanthropy Awards are really exciting as they provide funding for cross- displinary research, which is hard to fund through traditional channels. This award will enable us to take the concept forward from chemistry-based research into clinical applications, working with the Warwick Medical School and local hospitals,” he commented.
Published in Nature Communications. For more details visit
www2.warwick.ac.uk 31415pr@reply-direct.com
CTL Celebrate Major Award Win recent success in the annual
RSC Emerging Technologies Competition, winning the category of ‘Environment, Materials and Process Chemistry’ with a well-executed presentation and Q&A session before a leading panel of judges at the RSC in Burlington House, London. The panel consisted of representatives from the Industry and Technology Council, the Technology Strategy Board, Procter & Gamble Innovation and the Knowledge Transfer Network.
The competition’s aim is to support the best pre-start-ups and start-ups developing chemistry-based technologies.
In addition to winning a cash prize of £2,000 and being awarded a RSC plaque by BBC Dragon’s Den judge Richard Farleigh, Econic will benefit from one-to-one mentoring with Competition Partners such as Proctor & Gamble, Croda, GlaxoSmithKline and Catalent Applied Drug Delivery Institute.
Econic celebrate RSC award (Credit: MPP image creation/RSC)
31417pr@reply-direct.com
Catalytic Technologies Ltd (CTL), are delighted to be announced as winners of the 2014 Royal Society of Chemistry Emerging Technologies competition. Competing against a wide variety of novel and innovative new technologies in two categories, CTL and the other finalists had to pitch their new technology to judging panels made of industry innovation experts and CTL were awarded the overall winner prize in the ‘Environment, materials and process chemistry’ session.
During the presentation, Dr Richard Ward, Technical Manager commented: “We are delighted to be successful today at the RSC 2014 Emerging Technologies competition and this is another recognition of our achievements so far as we commercialise our new products. We would like to thank the four judges in our session for their award and we look forward to working with our mentors to deliver growth and commercial success of our technology. We would also like to thank the RSC for arranging and hosting the event and we congratulate all the finalists in what was a highly competitive and very interesting day.”
Dr Alan Cooper and Dr Richard Ward receiving the Emerging Technologies competition winners prize (photo MPP image creation/RSC)
The presentation of the prize was made by Dragon’s Den star Richard Farleigh who has a track record of investment in and support of innovative companies within the UK.
31416pr@reply-direct.com
Read all the latest News & Views, Articles and New Product Releases Online, visit:
www.labmate-online.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
