2019 Award Winners
The recipients of the Attractive Innovation Project award 2019 were celebrated at Uppsala University's Humanistic Theater.
Fifteen innovation projects and startup companies were recognised for hitting one or more milestones during 2019, including the development of new cancer therapies, technology for large-scale machine learning applications, and techniques that can facilitate drug development. Here, a selection of the projects is presented.
MolBoolean – novel method that extracts more information from cellular and tissue samples than previously possible by color-labeling individual proteins and complexes. Developed by Ola Söderberg's research group at the Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, this tool is anticipated to unlock significant advancements in both cell research and cancer care.
Enphasys – company founded by Janneke Keeemink and Christel Bergström, Department of Pharmacy, to further develop and commercialise a proprietary device for the lab environment that evaluate the intestinal performance of various oral drug formulations. The aim is to accelerate drug development and to provide patients with convenient oral drug products.
Anatycan – innovative method that drives the development of drugs for the treatment of severe form of cancer developed by Marika Nestor and Anja Mortensen, Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology.
Uppsala Therapeutics – redesigning existing technology to create conditions for new drugs. The company is founded by Jöns Hillborn and Oommen Varghese, both researchers in polymer chemistry at the Department of Chemistry – Ångström Laboratory, together with Oommen P Oommen at Tampere University and Victor Hartman who is the company’s CEO.
Cellda (previously MM18 Medical) – computer-aided image analysis enables significantly reduced health care costs for prostate cancer. Company founders are Erik Wilander, professor at the Department of Women's and Children's Health and Sören Nygren.
Percy Roc – using microwaves to harden carbon fibre. Dragos Dancila and Kristiaan Pelckmans, Department of Physics and Astronomy have together founded Percy Roc to commercialise microwave technology for new applications. As a first step, it will be used to cure carbon fibre composites within the aviation and automotive industries.
Individanpassade immunterapier – a unique idea for fighting cancer. Sara Mangsbo, Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, together with Helena Persson and colleagues leading the SciLifeLab Drug Discovery and Development (DDD) platform for antibodies, have developed a strategy similar to vaccination to get the body’s own immune cells to expand and specifically attack the cancer. The treatment is individualised, but the platform uses some generic components to shorten the time to treatment. In 2020, Strike Pharma was founded with the aim of commercialising the proprietary ADAC technology platform.
Scaleout – software that facilitates the use of artificial intelligence. The company Scaleout Systems provides a new solution for privacy preservation and secure machine learning developed by, inter alia, Andreas Hellander and Salman Toor, Department of Information Technology.