University of Cambridge UKRI Innovation Fellowships: BBSRC Flexible Talent Mobility Accounts
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Cambridge
Department Name: Physiology Development and Neuroscience
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Abigail Fowden (Principal Investigator) |
| Description | This funding has enabled early-career researchers to engage with industry and other non-academic partners to explore routes for their research and their expertise. There have been in-depth engagements via placements, which have resulted in employment and new opportunities for the participants, as well as deeper connections between the University and participating partner organisations. In addition, the funding has allowed unique training opportunities for early-career researchers, enhancing their ability to engage with industry in the future, and understand the way in which university research can be applied in real-world, commercial settings. |
| Exploitation Route | We anticipate that those early-career researchers involved with the funding via placements will now be able to develop further industry engagement along their chosen career path. For those involved in training programmes, they will have the opportunity to engage with other relevant funding (BBSRC and otherwise) to utilise their new skills, e.g. by seeking out industry partners or considering new avenues for their research and expertise. |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Chemicals,Environment,Healthcare,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
| Description | Through placements and visits, there has been direct, meaningful engagement with at least seven separate industry partners who have been able to explore the use of academic research and expertise in their commercial endeavours. One new offer of employment has resulted, as well as the re-training of an early-career researcher with direct benefit to her future employment options. Although somewhat early to report on the other placements, there is the potential for impact from these, e.g. relating to environmental policy, drug discovery. Access to training programmes has enhanced skills for industry engagement for those participating, with one programme enabling input into direct commercial recommendations for inventors of new technology. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2018 |
| Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Chemicals,Environment,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
| Impact Types | Economic,Policy & public services |
| Description | Innovation fellowship - AA |
| Organisation | STORM Therapeutics Ltd |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Postdoctoral researcher, Alper Akay of the University's Gurdon Institute, received FTMA funds to spend three months at STORM Therapeutics. His project aim was to develop a method to unambiguously identify methylated RNAs in an enzyme specific manner, initially focussing on a single RNA methyltransferase enzyme to establish a proof-of-concept study in C. elegans as an animal model for the enzyme specific identification of RNA methyltransferase targets. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Storm Therapeutics is the first and the only UK based company focusing on RNA modifying enzymes for therapeutic applications. They have established a state of the art mass spectrometry facility for the detection and quantification of RNA modifications, and AA was given access to equipment, expertise, consumables and their established pipeline approach. The approximate value of this in-kind contribution is at least £3000. |
| Impact | AA has secured a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, and attributes his experience on the FTMA Fellowship as part of the reason he was able to better shape and articulate his research plans, having had experience within a new biotech company, which forms the next link in the pathway to tackling problems being addressed by discovery science. He has taken this Fellowship to the University of East Anglia in order to establish his independent research career. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Innovation fellowship - JR |
| Organisation | AstraZeneca |
| Department | MedImmune |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Juraj Rievaj, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Metabolic Science, was awarded funding from the FTMA to spend three months at MedImmune. He conducted a project using his established expertise in Ussing chamber technologies, to study the effect of different excipients/permeation enhancers on the intestinal transport of native and protease-stable peptides developed by MedImmune. |
| Collaborator Contribution | MedImmune hosted JR for the duration, providing bench space, access to equipment and training in the use of different bio-assays and immuno-histological techniques routinely employed by them in their R&D activities. Also, as detailed they contributed approx. £6,500 in consumables and animal costs for the experiments being conducted. JR also had access to expertise from scientists who understand the industrial sector and the pharmaceutical development pipeline. |
| Impact | The collaboration resulted in a new employment opportunity for JR, as when his postdoctoral funding ended at the University, he was given a 12-month employment contract by MedImmune to continue setting up new analytical capabilities for the company. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Innovation fellowship - PK |
| Organisation | AstraZeneca |
| Department | Astra Zeneca |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Postdoctoral researcher, Panchali Kanvatirth from the Department of Veterinary Medicine, conducted a fellowship placement (part-time over 8 months) to to study the co-localisation between bacteria and antibiotics in the tissues and therefore answer the fundamental question of whether post-antibiotic microbial persistence is due to inefficient/incomplete targeting of some microbial sub-populations by current drugs/treatment regimens. |
| Collaborator Contribution | AstraZeneca hosted PK, providing bench space and consumable/equipment costs as an in-kind contribution. Most crucially to the project, they provided access to forefront MALDI- and DESI-mass spectrometry imaging techniques and instrumentation, along with expertise to help PK in her aim to produce a detailed spatial picture of co-localisation between antibiotics and bacteria in the tissues to an unprecedented high level of resolution by the identification of signature molecules from the bacteria and antibiotics. |
| Impact | PK has been able to move on to a new position within the University's Department of Pathology, with an improved understanding of the industrial context involved in developing solutions to infection. Longer-term outcomes will continue to be collected. |
| Start Year | 2018 |