University of Edinburgh ROSSER UKRI Innovation Fellowships: BBSRC Flexible Talent Mobility Accounts

Lead Research Organisation: University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Biological Sciences

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.

Publications

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Description This award specifically supports and enables academic-industry interactions, providing opportunities for early career researchers from both academia and industry to understand what doing science is like in the alternative setting. The award is not about generating specific scientific results and instead focuses on enhancing awareness of the pressures, criteria and requirements necessary to achieve societal benefit through scientific discovery and innovation. It has been an excellent scheme for academic-industry relationship building. More details of the projects undertaken are in the narrative impact section.
Exploitation Route The industrial relationships built, and which continue to develop, as a result of this award are being taken forward in the form of ongoing research collaborations. This award has resulted in ECRs being employed by the industry host and also in the successful spin-out of OGI Bio which continues to achieve success, recognition and collaborate with the University to expand its capabilities and services for clients.
Sectors Healthcare

Manufacturing

including Industrial Biotechology

Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology

 
Description The FTMA funding has provided our early career researchers with a wide variety of opportunities to develop new skills and acquire direct experience of the challenges and opportunities of working with industry. A summary of impacts is provided below. PDRA Dr Karamjit Dolt (Kunath lab) did an exchange with staff at UCB Pharma to transfer of biochemistry expertise in the preparation and analysis of recombinant alpha-synuclein and the maintenance and growth of human dopaminergic neurons. These technologies are fundamental for improved understanding of the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease and provide routes for the discovery and testing or potential therapeutic interventions. The exchange has strengthened and further developed the relationship between UCB collaborators and Edinburgh, enhanced Dolt's understanding of industry R&D in the Parkinson's arena, and has resulted in >£329k in further investment from UCB. Dolt has now secured a senior research post in Belgium. PDRA Dr Mantas Matjusaitis (Pollard lab) did a 3-month secondment to Horizon Discovery (Cambridge, UK). The secondment allowed exchange of expertise between the company and Pollard lab. Matjusaitis gained a better understanding of how industry operates and what good practice he could replicate in an academic research lab. He then returned to the Pollard lab and worked on a more translational research topic (gene therapy), which has led to the creation of a spin out company. His work also enabled Pollard to leverage an additional £220k in grant funding from Brain Research UK. Mantas has now joined the spin out company Cellinta Inc. PDRA Dr Alex McVey took 3 months out of his postdoc to develop a working prototype bioreactor device capable of automatically culturing four individual microbial cultures of between 5 and 20ml each. The funding allowed Dr McVey to attend the "More Business Acumen" course run by BrisSynBio in May 2018 and carry out preliminary market analysis of the product. McVey established good working relationships with key suppliers of parts for the devices and began working with influential stakeholders to define customer needs. Since then, McVey was awarded a BBSRC Pathfinder and participated in Innovate UK ICURe to conduct further market research. He helped win BBSRC IAA (local funding) to bring these devices closer to market and has now started a company called OGI Ltd and has become a Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellow. Alex has now become MD of OGI Bio, which has received seedcorn funding and has identified several customers for its device. OGI Bio has gone on to secure additional investment, was named as semi-finalists for the coveted Converge Award and won an Innovative Company in the 2022 Scottish Edge IBioIC Awards. The funding covered the cost of salary of Eric Thorand for 4 months during which he developed his entrepreneurial skills and explored the potential for setting up a start-up company while applying for translational awards to mature the IP. The FTMA support further maintained the existing relationship with our commercial partner, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), where Eric successfully applied to the Defence and Security Accelerator Open Call for Innovation (DASA). He also attended the '4 Day MBA' business skills, networking and investors course organised by UK's synthetic biology industry and engineering biology industrial accelerator, SynbiCITE. The FTMA also allowed him to liaise with Edinburgh Innovations enterprise services from the University of Edinburgh and the Wellcome Trust Entrepreneur in Residence. Since the project has applications to a variety of medical applications including those related to ageing (especially orthodontics), with the help of the FMTA, Eric Thorand secured the internal translational award (Wellcome Trust Institutional Translational Partnership Award) to continue the research and explore the alternative market opportunities of the new materials. Through extensive market research and the help of the Entrepreneur in Residence, we have repurposed our initial IP into a treatment for the dental repair of tooth cavities/or caries. We are currently optimising a formulation which can be used as new active ingredient in, for example, toothpastes. A BBSRC IAA award is being used to fund market research into potential applications for enamel-based materials. Eric left the university for a role with the NHS. The project continues to be developed by Andreas Andreou. FTMA funded the inward mobility (Newton Fund) of Birhanu Hurisa, Director of the Vaccines and Diagnostic Production Directorate, Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI). Hurisa came to the EGF to learn about state-of-the-art techniques in synthetic biology and genetic engineering. He is now exploring routes to establish those techniques in the EPHI with a view to developing a recombinant rabies vaccine that can supersede the in vivo vaccine production methods used locally. The visit has helped transfer knowledge to an LMIC and support the career development on an aspiring researcher. Dr Anna Costa (Soufi/Lowell labs) was supported to acquire industry-relevant skills in bioinformatic analysis & technical expertise in performing and analysing Chip-seq experiments. This led to Dr Costa successfully obtaining a position in a biotech company in Cambridge where she is making use of these skills for development of improved Cart therapies. The work also led to a publication "Gfi1 repurposes Atoh1 from neuronal to hair cell determinant without redistribution of its genomic binding sites," in Genes and Development and deposited on BioRxiv. Dr Pascoe Harvey (Rosser lab) did a ~3 month secondment in the Edinburgh Genome Foundry to learn genome assembly. He took a leadership role in designing and delivering several assembly projects for customers. Dr Harvey subsequently moved to work for a local synthetic biology SME called Biotangents. The FTMA also supported staff from local SME Ingenza to be trained in the automation of liquid handling. This has helped them better understand the power of high throughput liquid handling and automation processes, which they are now building into their workflows. A future collaboration between the Foundry and Ingenza is under discussion. FTMA has also supported skills development through training and industry conference attendance as follows: • PDRA Dr Elisa Pesenti (Earnshaw lab) works on the creation and modification of Human Artificial Chromosomes (HACs), which are useful for studying human genetics and development, and in cancer drug discovery. Pesenti attended two industry conferences to gain a better appreciation of future HAC applications in drug development. This experience has helped her career decision making and opened her eyes to new opportunities. She made several links to companies we have followed up. • PDRA Dr Nick Pantidos (Horsfall lab) attended the 4-Day More Business Acumen course and an industry conference to better clarify the potential of some IP generated by his lab. Dr Pantidos decided that the technology is too early to commercialise but exposure to the process of business evaluation, and an understanding of the market landscape, has been invaluable in his career planning. • PDRA Dr Dirk Kleinjan attended two US conferences focused around the commercialization of biological research. Dr Kleinjan gained an understanding about the opportunities, requirements and pitfalls associated with starting a spin out company. He found it highly educational to see real examples of successful start-up companies offering a wide variety of translational technologies. • PDRA Dr Simon Harding (Davies lab) strengthened his knowledge of Python coding via this course. This was invaluable in his role as the developer of the Guide to Pharmacology, synPHARM and Concise Guide to Pharmacology, which are significant resources developed and supported by the University and of wide value to the community.
First Year Of Impact 2018
Sector Agriculture, Food and Drink,Chemicals,Education,Healthcare,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology
Impact Types Economic

 
Description A novel automated, aerated and affordable bioreactor technology
Amount £12,253 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/T003979/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2019 
End 09/2019
 
Description BBSRC IAA
Amount £19,520 (GBP)
Funding ID BBSRC IAA PIII-038 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 07/2019 
End 01/2020
 
Description BBSRC IAA: Identifying and prioritisation of markets for enamel-like biomaterials
Amount £9,996 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/S506722/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2020 
End 04/2020
 
Description Defence And Security Accelerator (DASA): Enamel for transparent armour
Amount £88,529 (GBP)
Funding ID DSTLX1000135494 
Organisation Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2019 
End 08/2019
 
Description Developing an assay to measure neuron-to-neuron spread of alpha-synuclein on a microfluidcs platform
Amount £164,603 (GBP)
Funding ID BIOSCIE2009 
Organisation UCB Pharma 
Sector Private
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2019 
End 03/2020
 
Description EPSRC IAA
Amount £55,360 (GBP)
Funding ID EPSRC IAA PIII065 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2019 
End 12/2020
 
Description Extending the analytical capability of affordable Microbioreactors
Amount £14,900 (GBP)
Funding ID FF-2020-12 
Organisation IBioIC 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2021 
End 03/2021
 
Description IBioIC BBSRC CASE scholarship
Amount £136,450 (GBP)
Organisation IBioIC 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2020 
End 09/2024
 
Description IBioIC Feasibility Grant: Enamel matrix protein formulation for tooth repair
Amount £10,800 (GBP)
Organisation IBioIC 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2020 
End 08/2020
 
Description OGI - Follow on fund application
Amount £174,834 (GBP)
Funding ID 42965 
Organisation Innovate UK 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2020 
End 10/2021
 
Description Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowship Cohort 17
Amount £59,232 (GBP)
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2020 
End 03/2021
 
Description Wellcome Institutional Translational Partnership Award: Protein-mediated tooth remineralization as prevention and treatment of dental caries
Amount £19,939 (GBP)
Funding ID PIII045 
Organisation Wellcome Trust 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2019 
End 11/2019
 
Description iCURE follow on fund application (OGI Follow on fund application)
Amount £249,763 (GBP)
Organisation Innovate UK 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2020 
End 09/2021
 
Description iCURe cohort C
Amount £35,496 (GBP)
Funding ID I-C-08 
Organisation Innovate UK 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2019 
End 10/2019
 
Description Collaboration with Cellinta 
Organisation Cellinta
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Spin out from lab of Prof Steve Pollard
Collaborator Contribution Ongoing collaboration in the area of cancer gene therapy
Impact NA
Start Year 2020
 
Description Collaboration with OGI Bio Ltd 
Organisation OGI BIO LTD
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution In this collaboration, we will develop a bioreactor with in situ imaging capability. By doing so we will access information on microbial cell shape, which is currently inaccessible with high throughput. The collaboration is through an IBioIC and BBSRC CASE studentship.
Collaborator Contribution The company will offer 6-month placement during which the student will have the opportunity to participate and learn about commercialization efforts of the technology we will develop as part of the studentship.
Impact An IBioIC BBSRC CASE scholarship was secured commencing in 2020.
Start Year 2020
 
Title In situ microbial imaging device 
Description Cell counting technology and high-throughput imaging are currently focused mainly on mammalian cells. The task of imaging (and counting via imaging) of microbial, and in particular bacterial cells, is non-trivial due to their small size, extensive size changes (up 10 to 100 times), the fact that bacteria can swim, as well as by the fact that biotechnology-relevant media is turbid and often viscous. A need for in-line imaging devices that are capable of offering high-resolution imaging of microbial cells has been identified. The invention is an imaging apparatus for collecting and imaging a sample within the growing bacterial culture. 
IP Reference 2318340.3 
Protection Patent / Patent application
Year Protection Granted 2023
Licensed No
Impact The technology is expected to be licensed to OGI Bio, a startup company formed in 2020. The University of Edinburgh and OGI Bio are currently negotiating the license.
 
Company Name OGI Bio 
Description OGI Bio develops a device designed to automate microbial culturing. 
Year Established 2020 
Impact The company has been awarded an initial £250k Innovate UK grant for one year to ready its market position. Since then, it secured an additional £1.5M investor funding, grew to 10 employees, and is selling its affordable and retrofittable micro bioreactors (expected to reach cash-positive status within the next 4-6 months).
Website https://ogibio.co.uk/
 
Company Name Cellinta Ltd 
Description  
Year Established 2019 
Impact Seed funding secured of ~£5M.