Double success for SweDeliver on the IVA 100 list

(Image removed) Christel Bergström and Sara Mangsbo, Faculty of Pharmacy and SweDeliver

The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, IVA, has published the 100 list of 2022, highlighting Technology in the service of mankind. Among the projects recognised for "great potential for business and societal benefit" is the SweDeliver national competence center in drug delivery, and ADAC, a technology with capacity to enable completely new possibilities in personalised cancer therapies – both led by researchers at the Faculty of Pharmacy.

(Image removed) Christel Bergström, Center Director, SweDeliver

“SweDeliver plays a crucial part in establishing Sweden along the frontline of needs-driven pharmaceutical research. Together with our European industry partners, we have created an internationally strong research portfolio generating necessary knowledge for the development of new drugs for diseases without effective treatment. In parallel, we prepare our junior researchers for leading positions in Swedish Life Science, and the fact that IVA rewards our competence center with a place on the 100 list is a powerful recognition of the values of the important work we conduct in a technologically challenging domain,” states Christel Bergström, Center Director and Professor of Molecular Pharmaceutics.

With the 100 list, IVA provides the foundation for new bridges between academia and industry. Thus, strengthening the platform to turn research with potential to change the world into actual benefits. The 2022 list is highlighting projects, innovations and infrastructures that might contribute to, among many important values, increased sustainability, equality and health for everyone. The selection assesses above all the potential for business development and benefit for users, companies and society. However, the basic criterion is and remains scientific excellence.

(Image removed) Sara Mangsbo at SciLifeLab, Uppsala University

“Immunotherapy as a cancer treatment is a science still facing the challenge to increase the number of tumor-specific T cells and to make them seek out and destroy cancer cells. In collaboration with the SciLifeLab Drug Discovery and Development Platform, our group chose a partly alternative strategy and developed a method where we, via an injection, make the tumor visible to the immune system and accelerate the production of the exact T cells required. If all goes well, our innovation, ADAC, has the capacity to take science over a very important threshold,” says Sara Mangsbo, research director at the Faculty of Pharmacy. and leader of the SweDeliver Training and Career Development Work package

The 100 list is presented by Research2Business, an IVA project working to make Sweden a global leader in transforming academic research in technical and economic sciences into innovation and industrial competitiveness. The list committee consists of more than 40 qualified representatives for academia, industry and public organisations, and a position on the 100 list will provide new and increased contact areas to potential collaborations.

“Today we continue to develop ADAC within the framework of our newly started company Strike Pharma AB. We have a very competent team and the funding to take us a long way forward, and that we now are also holding a position on the 100 list adds both important inspiration and new opportunities in our work to shorten the path to cancer treatment, so the future definitely looks promising,” states Sara Mangsbo.

FACTS

• With the 100-list, the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences highlights research with potential to create benefits in the foreseeable future.
• In focus of this year’s 100 list is Technology in the service of mankind.
• SweDeliver is a world-leading research and competence center in drug delivery with academic hub at Uppsala University's Faculty of Pharmacy.
• Antibody Drug Affinity Conjugate (ADAC), developed by Sara Mangsbo, is based on creating synthetic fragments of proteins, similar to those found in the tumor and injecting them into the patient. This exposes the tumor to the immune system, which consequently begins to produce completely new, tumor-specific T cells, which in turn lead the already existing T cells to identify and destroy the tumor.

LEARN MORE

• The 100 list 2022
• SweDeliver online
• New technology paves the way for vaccination against cancer

CONTACT

(Image removed) Christel Bergström, Professor
SweDeliver, Uppsala University
Christel.Bergstrom@farmaci.uu.se

(Image removed) Sara Mangsbo, Research director
SweDeliver, Uppsala University
Sara.Mangsbo@farmbio.uu.se

text: Magnus Alsne, photo: Mikael Wallerstedt