BioInnovator Spotlight – Details, episodes & analysis

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are revolutionizing almost every field. Drug discovery - the process of identifying druggable targets and potential therapeutic compounds - is a long, costly, and often laborious process wherein researchers may sift through thousands of therapeutic candidates for a target looking for a hit.

After many decades of experimentation, millions of data points on targets and therapeutic compounds exist for all kinds of disease indications. This is far too much information for even a top team of humans to interpret, but can artificial intelligence algorithms make sense of it all to improve the drug discovery process?

In this episode of BioInnovator Spotlight, we speak with Ségolène Martin, CEO and co-founder of Kantify, a company using AI technology to improve drug discovery in a variety of fields such as oncology and neuromuscular disorders.

Mammalian cell culture is difficult to scale up. Many cell types do not grow well in suspension and preferably attach to surfaces like the bottom of their flasks. Currently, researchers examine this growth manually and culture cells by hand in specialized cell culture flasks.

Cell culture is critical in many fields of research, from healthcare to future food technology, and scaling this technique using automated processes is the holy grail of manufacturing cell-based products that are both affordable and high-quality.

Unicorn Biotechnologies was founded by Adam Glen and Jack Reid to take on this challenge. In this episode of BioInnovator Spotlight, Adam and Jack tell us what motivated them to enter the world of automation, how they met at Entrepreneur First, and what they hope to achieve with Unicorn in the coming year.

Measuring brain activity is a challenge in neuroscience. Unlike other medical fields, we can't directly measure the brain. This makes it difficult to develop drugs and determine their effectiveness. Objective measurements are needed to improve treatment decisions for patients.

Improving neuroscience measurements could benefit drug development. Pharmaceutical companies prefer precedents, but personalised treatments for similar patient subgroups may be more effective for brain-related conditions.

Dr Jenny Barnett co-founded Monument Therapeutics, a spin-out of Cambridge Cognition where she served as Chief Scientific Officer, focusing on developing personalised therapeutics for these underserved patient subgroups. In this episode, she tells us about her journey from psychology to CEO and we discuss the major unmet needs in the field of neuroscience.

Cell and gene therapies have effectively treated complex indications such as leukaemia. Despite their proven results, the high production cost and lengthy manufacturing time prevent all patients from benefitting from these remarkable technologies.

ImmTune Therapies is building a platform that allows for the in-patient generation of cell and gene therapies, radically increasing the potency and reach of these therapies to all the patients who need them by using novel delivery vectors.

Dr Bakul Gupta talks about her story as a founder and how she co-founded ImmTune with Dr George Tetley.

Many neurological diseases share similar symptoms, making correct diagnosis difficult and impacting the treatment of patients. While Alzheimer's Disease has made advancements in its diagnostic criteria becoming more based on biology, Parkinson's Disease and other neurological conditions lag behind and remain diagnosed mainly based on clinical presentation.

Dr Ruiqing Ni is leading the NeuroPAT project, a collaboration between the University Hospital Zurich, ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich, the University Hospital Bern, and the University of Aachen. They aim to develop a biological definition of neurological diseases, detecting molecular changes in the brain, which will help detect and treat the disease.

Preterm infants are uniquely at risk due to a lack of glucose deposits in their tissue compared to full-term infants. However, monitoring blood glucose is currently only possible by taking blood samples - a process limited to once per several hours due to their low blood volume.

The Gluckli Project hopes to make a substantial difference for at-risk preterm infants. The Gluckli team is developing a non-invasive tool to continuously monitor blood glucose levels of preterm infants using microfluidics technology.

The Gluckli project is based out of the University of Zurich and University Hospital Zurich, and led by Dr Aldo Di Costanzo Mata, an Entrepreneur Fellow at the University of Zurich. He talks to us about his journey from Mexico to Switzerland and becoming a founder.

Cancer treatment has come a long way in recent decades, but a significant portion of patients remain unresponsive to traditional treatments and novel immunotherapies. Personalised cell therapy may be a new option in treating these patients.

Persomed is developing such a platform targeting cancer patients and the company is led by Dr Lien Lybaert. She discusses her journey to the CEO role, Persomed's work on the platform, and her challenges raising funds for their first clinical trial.

Point-of-care imaging is a massive area of unmet need for patients. When neurosurgeon Dr Jinendra Ekanayake first met one of his co-founders, Tim Constandinou, as a PhD student, they found a shared interest in brain-computer interfaces. As years went by, their conversations on the overlap between electronics and biology became ideas about developing surgical innovations to address this unmet need for handheld surgical tools and integrating them with the next generation.

Jinendra shares his story of co-founding Quetz at Imperial College London, and the challenges he faces in developing new tools and attracting funding in today's difficult environment. As always, our guest recommends an inspirational book for other founders.

Michael Hunt is CEO of the Imperial College London-based start-up NK:IO. In this episode, he tells us about his journey from accounting into the life sciences and how he became involved in the cell therapy space.

We discuss the challenges facing innovative start-ups like NK:IO in this competitive field and why their technology presents a unique solution to fighting solid tumours. Michael also shares his reasons for taking on the CEO role in an early-stage company where risk is prevalent.

Aslak Christiansen is the co-founder of Myco4Food a new company based at the BII in Copenhagen, Denmark. We discuss the future of food, sustainability, and the challenge of plant-based products for meeting nutritional needs - and why fungi may be the answer.

Aslak also discusses his motivations for becoming a founder and putting a PhD on hold. As always, we ask him for a book recommendation (or two!) that made an impact on his journey so far.