Tag: Harvard

First round of Bertarelli Rare Cancers Fund grants awarded

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Following the establishment of the Bertarelli Rare Cancers Fund at Harvard Medical School (HMS) in 2019, the first round of grants was awarded in 2020, with more than $9 million distributed to nine teams representing more than 19 lead and co-lead investigators across HMS and its affiliated hospitals. Research kicked off this winter.

HMS Dean George Q. Daley said:

“This exciting new program will advance our capacity to prevent, treat, and cure rare cancers, which, combined, affect many tens of thousands of patients and their loved ones in this country each year. By building research capacity and cross-institutional collaboration, the fund helps us pursue our mission of generating new biological insights and treatment strategies that improve health for all.”

Dona Bertarelli commented:

“We have a shared ambition to conduct research and innovate for the good of society. It’s clear that there is a need and an opportunity to accelerate transformative rare cancer research, and it is my hope that the fund will create a community of researchers who will, in collaboration with scientists around the world, transform the understanding, treatment, and care of rare cancers.”

It can be hard to make research progress in a rare cancer. For instance, tissue samples are scarce and pharmaceutical companies have less incentive to develop drugs for small patient markets. Academic institutions such as HMS can be particularly helpful, Daley said.

With the fresh infusion from the Bertarelli fund, HMS is able to build the infrastructure, generate the knowledge, and strengthen the research communities for rare cancers that more common cancers benefit from.

The ultimate goal is to improve the detection, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of rare cancers.

The gift “shines a spotlight on the needs of rare cancer research” and addresses some of those needs by “supporting promising new research, bringing researchers together, and showing patients that progress can be made,” said fund director Ed Harlow, the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research and Teaching in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS.

The first grants span basic, translational, and clinical science while linking junior and senior faculty across the HMS community. The multidisciplinary collaborations promise to approach problems from different perspectives and produce stronger science.

Grant recipients are investigating different individual rare cancers as well as genetic and molecular mechanisms that span multiple rare cancers.

The fund administrators plan to support projects that build biological tools for studying clear cell cancers, including cell lines, xenografts, and three-dimensional tissue structures known as organoids.

To learn more about the Bertarelli Rare Cancers Fund and the different projects, visit:
https://brcf.hms.harvard.edu/

Harvard University Launches the 2021 President’s Innovation Challenge

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The Harvard Innovation Labs has launched the 10th Annual President’s Innovation Challenge, a competition designed to bring together the Harvard community to work on compelling solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems. For the 2021 Challenge, winning teams will receive $510,000 in prizes from the Bertarelli Foundation.  Ernesto Bertarelli commented:

“The Bertarelli Foundation has long recognised the importance of entrepreneurship in driving forward human progress.  I’m pleased to see that with each passing year, the iLab and the President’s Innovation Challenge, fosters more and more young entrepreneurs as they tackle some of the world’s most pressing problems.”

“As we kick off this year’s President’s Innovation Challenge, our focus first and foremost is shining a light on the incredible innovators and entrepreneurs across the global Harvard community,” said Matt Segneri, Bruce and Bridgitt Evans Executive Director of the Harvard Innovation Labs. “Over the next six months, we look forward to supporting all of the venture teams participating in the Challenge, and recognizing their many achievements both leading up to and during the PIC Awards Ceremony.”  

Participants in the 2021 President’s Innovation Challenge will have access to a variety of Harvard Innovation Labs virtual resources, including advisors and industry experts from around the world, workshops on topics focused on starting and scaling a venture, and panels that are both industry- and stage-specific. 

In May 2021, the 10th Annual President’s Innovation Challenge Awards Ceremony will celebrate the work of 25 finalists through a unique, immersive, and interactive virtual experience with focus on a “more human” future. Ten of the finalists will receive $500,000 in Bertarelli Foundation prizes across five tracks: Social or Cultural Impact; Health or Life Sciences; Open for ideas that transcend categories; Launch Lab X GEO for eligible alumni-led ventures, and Life Lab for high-potential biotech and life sciences ventures accepted into the Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab. Additionally, the President’s Innovation Challenge will award $10,000 as part of the Ingenuity Awards, for ideas with the potential to be world-changing, even if they are not yet fully formed ventures. 

Last year’s grand-prize winners, each receiving $75,000, were Umbulizer for building a reliable and low-cost device that can provide continuous ventilation to patients; Coding it Forward for empowering the next generation of technology leaders to create social change; Fractal for developing a solution for streaming Windows 10 desktops to macOS or Windows devices; Vincere Health for using real-time incentives and behavioral nudges to motivate people to live healthier lives; and Tectonic Therapeutic for transforming the discovery of novel drugs addressing targets in the G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) family. 

To learn more about the 2021 President’s Innovation Challenge visit innovationlabs.harvard.edu/presidents-innovation-challenge.  

Congratulations to the Winners of the 2020 Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge

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$510,000 in Bertarelli Foundation prizes were awarded to ventures across industries during a virtual awards ceremony presented by the Harvard Innovation Labs

The 2020 President’s Innovation Challenge (PIC) Awards Ceremony was vastly different to the ones of previous years.  The corona virus pandemic meant that the event was held online rather than on Harvard’s campus but, despite this, the ceremony was still a great success with more than 1,000 people tuning in to see the largest prize pool awarded to the successful teams.

People tuned in from around the world for the PIC Virtual Awards Ceremony to see ventures founded by Harvard students and alumni showcase their solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems across industries. During the one-hour live-streamed event presented by the Harvard Innovation Labs, 25 finalists showcased their work, and 10 ventures received $500,000 in Bertarelli Foundation prizes across five tracks: Social Impact or Cultural Enterprise; Health and Life Sciences; Open for ideas that transcend categories; Launch Lab X for eligible alumni-led ventures, and Life Lab for high-potential biotech and life sciences ventures accepted into the Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab.

This year’s grand-prize winners, which each received $75,000, are Umbulizer for building a reliable and low-cost device that can provide continuous ventilation to patients; Coding it Forward for empowering the next generation of technology leaders to create social change; Fractal for developing a solution for streaming Windows 10 desktops to macOS or Windows devices; Vincere Health for using real-time incentives and behavioural nudges to motivate people to live healthier lives; and Tectonic Therapeutic for transforming the discovery of novel drugs addressing targets in the G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) family.

Sanchay Gupta, Chief Medical Officer and co-founder of Umbulizer commented after receiving grand prize award in the Health & Life Sciences Track:

The world needs ventilators now more than ever, and this award will directly fund the production of additional devices that we can then deliver to patients in need.

The four runners-up, who each received $25,000, were Concerto Biosciences for discovering functional microbial communities for human therapeutics using a patented screening platform; Tang for its international mobile payment app that makes paying and sending money easier; Change The Tune: The Studio for providing impactful learning opportunities for young people and innovators; OZÉ for its platform connecting small business owners in Africa to data, cash, clients, and each other; and Day Zero Diagnostics for combining genome sequencing and machine learning to modernize infectious disease diagnosis and treatment.

The President’s Innovation Challenge awarded a further $10,000 as part of the Ingenuity Awards – for ideas with the potential to be world-changing, even if they are not yet fully formed ventures. This year’s Ingenuity Grand Prize winner was Foresight for empowering people with vision impairments with a novel wearable navigation device using soft actuators and computer vision. The two runners-up were 1,000 More for facilitating crowd-funding lobbying efforts so that average Americans have access to that part of our democracy; and Datacule for developing molecular data storage technology.

Matt Segneri, Bruce and Bridgitt Evans Executive Director of the Harvard Innovation Labs.commented:

I am so proud to be a part of this diverse and incredibly talented Harvard Innovation Labs community.  This year is our ninth year hosting the PIC and over 1,500 teams have now passed through this community that we are building together. We are excited to be a hub that connects, supports, and inspires students and alumni across all Harvard schools, and we are dedicated to nurturing the endless curiosity of these entrepreneurs and innovators.

The President’s Innovation Challenge prizes are exclusively funded by the Bertarelli Foundation, which announced the President’s Innovation Challenge Fund in October 2017 to fund the competition for the next five years. This gift extends the Bertarelli Foundation’s support of student-led ventures at Harvard, which began in 2013 when the Foundation funded the Deans’ Health and Life Sciences Challenge at the Harvard i-lab.

To watch the President’s Innovation Challenge Virtual Awards Ceremony and learn more about the winners, visit pic2020.innovationlabs.harvard.edu

An interview with Dr. Ida Pavlichenko, co-founder of PionEar Technologies Inc.

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The Bertarelli Prize is awarded each year to the winners of Harvard University’s President’s Challenge – an initiative of the university’s Innovation Lab which helps students and alumni develop their nascent business ideas.  PionEar Technologies was one of the 2018 Challenge winners after impressing the judges with their use of anti-biofouling technologies to treat infections of the middle ear.  Dr. Ida Pavlichenko, one of the company’s co-founders, describes how PionEar has progessed since winning the Bertarelli Prize.

After earning her PhD in inorganic chemistry at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 2014, Dr. Ida Pavlichenko joined Prof. Joanna Aizenberg’s lab at the Harvard J. A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, which pursues a wide range of research interests in the field of bioinspired materials science. She became interested in the idea of anti-biofouling, and together with her colleague Dr. Michael Kreder and collaborators from Prof. Jennifer Lewis’ group – Nicole Black and Dr. Claas Visser – she started to contemplate what novel medical applications might arise from these technologies. Very quickly she wondered whether it might help improve treatment of middle ear infections.

Why are ear infections such a serious problem?

Over 700,000,000 people globally suffer from ear infections each year. For young children the consequences can be very serious – over 40% develop a chronic condition with a persistent fluid in the middle ear and 25% suffer from a permanent hearing loss which impacts their learning ability and communication skills.

If infections become regular and the fluid in the middle does not clear for more than three months, doctors will often suggest the surgical implantation of an ear tube into the eardrum which helps equalize pressure in the middle ears, drain away any build-up of fluid, and allow the introduction of antibiotics. After six to 24 months ear tubes typically fall out from the eardrum on their own accord. Incredibly, the insertion of ear tubes is the most common surgery for children in the US.

What is wrong with the current design of ear tubes?

Up to 40 to 60% of the current tubes fail for a variety of reasons and resulting in the lumen or passageway of the tube getting clogged by blood, pus, bacteria, cellular debris, etc. This clogging prevents ventilation of the passageway, and does not allow for drainage of fluid and passage of medicine through the tube and into the ear. Some tubes even get prematurely pushed out of the eardrum, or stay in the eardrum longer than needed. In either case, the tube will need to be removed or replaced which is another unwanted operation under general anaesthesia – especially for a young child. Tubes can also get infected by the bacteria present in the middle ear and cause new infections which can be challenging to treat.

How will your product help doctors treat infections of the middle ear?

We have pioneered a novel design which features a unique material and design geometry that allows us to address all of the key complications experienced by patients today. Our proprietary design leverages a unique “non-stick” material to reduce biofouling and blockage of the device, and improve ear fluid drainage. The combination of our material and proprietary shape enable the unique fluidic properties of our device. Importantly, the improved fluid flow properties of PionEar’s device enable a drug delivery channel with a smaller device size – this is a great benefit for young children and means their surgeries are less invasive and the tube causes less damage to the eardrum. Our invention has also won the Collegiate Innovators Competition by National Hall of Fame and the United States Patent and Trademark Office this year.

How did winning the Bertarelli Prize help PionEar Technologies?

Winning the Bertarelli Prize gives us a great deal of credibility and confidence as we take the venture forward over the next few years – perhaps that’s even more important that the prize fund itself. We are incredibly thankful for the Bertarelli Foundation for giving our team the impetus to commercializing out technology!

We are using the $75,000 prize to outsource the manufacturing of the prototypes with silicone injection companies, and pay to the costs associated with starting a new venture.

How did you come up with the idea behind PionEar Technologies?

I have a young daughter who was herself suffering from recurrent ear infections; eventually her paediatrician started to talk about ear tubes and so tackling this problem and making treatment more effective is really very important to me.

The idea was borne out a meeting with the co-inventors of the technology: Nicole Black, Dr. Michael Kreder, Prof. Joanna Aizenberg, and our medical collaborators at the Mass Eye and Ear – Dr. Aaron Remenschneider and Dr. Elliot Kozin, and we started to recognise the potential for this material in treating ear infections.

Having an interdisciplinary team is so important; by combining the expertise of medical doctors, material scientists and experts in business, we’ve been able to progress this venture much more quickly than we’d be able to do otherwise.

How’s does the iLab prepare you for the Innovation Challenge?

The iLab environment – and the staff – are incredible. Our iLab mentor Alice Ly was a huge help and really made sure we were making the most of everything the iLab had to offer.

Likewise, other mentors, entrepreneurs-in-residency and iLab staff are all fantastic. They’re obviously very knowledgeable, but also very personal and encouraging. It’s a very supportive environment but one in which you get on if you’re prepared to work hard.

Apart from the Bertarelli Prize, what have you got out of the Innovation Challenge?

Thanks to the Innovation Challenge I’ve caught the “entrepreneurship bug”, so I guess it catalysed a very critical career decision for me. I’ve decided to commercialize our invention, and I was recently appointed as a Technology Development Fellow at the Wyss Institute, which has provided us with a highly competitive and prestigious Validation Grant to support our in vivo studies. I am also currently a part-time CEO and co-founder of PionEar Technologies, seeking to transition into the company full time when locking down the next financing round.

How did PionEar Technologies evolve and what’s next?

Winning the Bertarelli Prize at the President’s Innovation Challenge in May 2018 has opened doors to so many great opportunities for our team. We were accepted on to the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council’s MassCONNECT program and got an incredible help from a large team of experienced Biotech and Medtech mentors on a weekly basis. Our team has won the Audience Choice Grand Prize at the Mass Innovation Nights 115’s 5th Annual Female Founders Event. We are also extremely fortunate and grateful to have won the Gold Prize at the MassChallenge – is the largest-ever start-up accelerator that supports early-stage entrepreneurs.

Shortly after winning the Bertarelli Prize we successfully applied for the grant at the Wyss Institute – one of the world-leading institutions with a unique model that applies the development of disruptive technologies across a range of disciplines. I know that there is more is to come for PionEar Technologies as we compete at the Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge, and apply for US government funding programs. Currently our medical device is undergoing the studies at the Mass Eye and Ear, and we are aiming to continue fundraising for securing the FDA clearance in the near future.

Winning ventures announced at the 2018 President’s Innovation Challenge

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A device toolkit that makes STEM education truly engaging, a mobile app for helping small businesses in emerging markets improve their performance, and a startup that’s revolutionising the treatment of ear infections were awarded the three top prizes in the seventh annual President’s Innovation Challenge showcase and awards ceremony at the Harvard Innovation Labs.

President Drew Faust of Harvard University awarded each of the three student ventures, STEMgem, OZÉ, and PionEar, with $75,000 in prize money from the Bertarelli Foundation to help them turn their ideas into impactful, real-world ventures.

Three runners-up, which received $25,000 in prizes, were FinWeGo, a workplace financial wellness platform that helps employers provide affordable and convenient credit to their employees; Jump Credit, helping nonprofits provide free, instant, personalized credit advice to economically vulnerable clients; and X-Cor Therapeutics, which is working on a cheaper and safer extracorporeal CO2 removal (ECCOR) therapy for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Based on an audience vote, the second annual Crowd Favorite prize of $10,000 was given to Mozambique School Lunch Initiative, which is investing in community-owned school lunch programs to improve childhood nutrition in Mozambique.

This year, prizes for the President’s Innovation Challenge were exclusively funded by the Bertarelli Foundation, which announced the President’s Innovation Challenge Fund in October 2017 to support the winners of the competition for the next five years. This gift extends the Bertarelli Foundation’s previous backing of student-led ventures at Harvard, which began in 2013 when the foundation funded the Deans’ Health and Life Sciences Challenge at the Harvard Innovation Labs.

Ernesto Bertarelli, co-chair of the Bertarelli Foundation said:

“Bringing students together from diverse backgrounds and industries to solve complex global challenges has the power to change millions of people’s lives.  We’re therefore delighted to partner with the Harvard Innovation Labs and to have established the Bertarelli Prize Fund for the winners of the President’s Challenge. I look forward to seeing what the winning ventures from 2018 accomplish in the years to come.”

PionEar co-founder Ida Pavlichenko, winner of the grand prize in the Health or Life Science category, said on hearing the news:

“Winning the President’s Innovation Challenge will play a significant role in helping us commercialise our product.”

The President’s Innovation Challenge is open to any Harvard student or postdoc across the 12 Harvard Schools. This year, a record 460 teams entered the competition — more than double the previous year. Teams competed across three tracks — Social Impact or Cultural Enterprise, Health or Life Science, and Open Track for ideas that transcended categories. All 15 finalists showcased their products and services at the event, and gave one-minute pitches onstage prior to President Faust announcing the winners.

 

Bertarelli Foundation President’s Innovation Challenge Fund at Harvard Business School

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The Bertarelli Foundation is pleased to announce that through its gift to Harvard University, the Bertarelli Foundation President’s Innovation Challenge Fund has been established at Harvard Business School.

Ernesto Bertarelli commented:

“We are delighted to support the President’s Innovation Challenge Fund, building once again on our existing relationship with Harvard.  Our aim is to help Harvard find and support the next generation of entrepreneurs with bold ideas and the commitment to see those become reality. With the support of the remarkable community of teachers and innovators at the School, I am confident this Fund will continue to help fuse the scientific vision and the passion for business that Harvard inspires amongst its students.”

Established in 2012, the President’s Innovation Challenge was established to encourage members of the Harvard community to engage with issues facing the world and to spark the creative development of solutions that will address vexing social, medical, and scientific problems. In 2017, more than 200 student teams from across Harvard University competed in the Challenge.

In 2013, the Bertarelli Foundation funded the Deans’ Health and Life Sciences Challenge at the Harvard i-lab. This new commitment to the President’s Innovation Challenge Fund will extend the Bertarelli Foundation’s generosity to a broader range of early stage ventures and enable creative ideas to flourish at Harvard and beyond. In recognition of this new gift, the winners of the President’s Innovation Challenge will be awarded Bertarelli Foundation Prizes each year for the next five years.

Harvard President Drew Faust said of the gift:

“Whether it’s the development of safe and affordable surgical kits that are easily transportable to places in need of medical resources, a venture working to accelerate advances in artificial intelligence, or the scores of other projects that have been part of the President’s Innovation Challenge, the program has helped unleash the entrepreneurial and creative spirit of the Harvard community.  Making progress toward solutions to global problems requires new thinking that transcends boundaries and disciplines, and we are very grateful to the Bertarelli Foundation for the vision and generosity they have shown in their support of this community of innovators dedicated to that task.”

Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria added:

“We see countless examples of the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship in finding solutions to society’s most intractable challenges.  The Bertarelli Foundation’s generous gift will fuel the entrepreneurial spirit that exists across the University by ensuring that students have the resources to bring their game-changing ideas to fruition.”

 

 

A conversation with Giffin Daughtridge, winner of the 2017 Bertarelli Prize

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Giffin Daughtridge, MD is the co-founder and CEO of UrSure, a venture he started with Dr. Helen Koenig at Harvard University’s Innovation Lab, and winner of the 2017 Bertarelli Prize.  Giffin kindly made time to let us know how the iLab and the Bertarelli Prize have helped him achieve his goal of reducing the spread of HIV.

How is UrSure tackling the spread of HIV?

We’re developing tests that let doctors monitor whether their patients are adhering to their PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) regimens. Whilst PrEP only requires a single oral dose per day to be 99% effective at preventing HIV, studies have shown that over the course of a year, adherence to even simple drug regimens can fall to as low as 20 to 50%.  Until recently the only way for clinicians to determine adherence of their patients to PrEP was through self-reporting – a notoriously un-reliable method.

Why is it important to know whether patients are taking their PrEP Medication?

Missing doses can seriously reduce the protection provided to the patient and could lead them to contract HIV.  It’s important for clinicians – and patients – to know that they are protected from infection.

UrSure is developing two tests which will give clinicians an accurate assessment of their patients’ adherence.  The first is a lab-based urine test which provides a quantitative indication of the level of PrEP medication in the patient’s system.  Whilst this is an important tool, it does not give an immediate result.  It also requires the patient to meet with their clinician on another occasion to discuss their test results.  For some patients with chaotic or busy lifestyles, this is a huge hurdle.

We were keen therefore to develop a cheaper test which gives an immediate, albeit binary, result.  We are developing a ‘point-of-care’ urine dip-test, similar to a pregnancy test, which tells clinicians whether their patient is taking their medication.

How did you realise there was need to develop this new test?

I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2011 and went to Colombia on a Fulbright research scholarship. While there, I started a vaccination clinic for sex workers.  After a year I moved back to the US and met Dr. Helen Koenig, an infectious disease physician, who was starting a PrEP clinic in Philadelphia, PA.  In our clinic, we realised very quickly that we didn’t know with any confidence whether our patients were taking their medication – in fact, one of our patients contracted HIV, something which would not have happened if he were taking his medication as prescribed.

Helen and I started to think about how this test might be administered.  We didn’t want to develop another blood test for this group of patients and instead decided to see if a patient-friendly urine test might be the way forward.

In 2015 we incorporated UrSure Inc. in order to allow us to apply for a Small Business Innovation Research grant and to other funding streams.  I quickly realised that in order for UrSure to be a success I couldn’t run the company and complete my residency – so I decided to work on UrSure on a full-time basis after graduating medical and policy school.

How has winning the Bertarelli Prize helped UrSure develop?

For Helen and I it has been a game-changer by helping us accelerate the development of our products.  The prize of $75,000 USD, along with other prizes and funding we’ve been able to secure since, will help us develop our point-of-care test and overcome legal and regulatory hurdles that exist to new products entering the marketplace.

But the iLab Challenge is about more than just the prize fund.  Harvard’s iLab provides an incredible place to learn and develop a complete business plan.  When I started in October 2015, I had no idea how to start a company, I knew nothing about business, how to scale-up or how to create a financial model – but the great thing is, the iLab has plenty of people who do.  I sincerely believe that UrSure wouldn’t be where it is today if it weren’t for the entire iLab ecosystem – the facilities, the Challenge and the Bertarelli Prize.

What’s next for UrSure?

Now that our clinical test has been validated, we’re working with commercial laboratories to have doctors, patients and insurance companies start using the test.  Ultimately, we want to scale up so we are providing tests for as many PrEP patients as possible – there are over 100,000 in the US alone.

We’re continuing to develop our Point of Care urine test and we hope to have that ready for our clinical trials by 2018.

UrSure Inc. win the 2017 Bertarelli Prize at Harvard University’s iLab

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For the last several years, the Bertarelli Foundation has proudly sponsored Harvard University’s Innovation Lab.  More specifically, we have provided the Bertarelli Prize, which is awarded to the winner of the ‘Health & Life Science Track’ in the annual President’s Innovation Challenge.

The Innovation Challenge supports Harvard students on their journey to turn their desire for a better world into a sustainable venture. This year’s finalists responded to the desperate need for innovation within the health and life sciences industry, as well as solve social issues (equitability, sustainability and safety), and also innovate in other areas that transcend the Challenge categories.

This year, more than 200 student teams applied to participate in the Innovation Challenge with the finalists being selected by a committee of more than 150 judges with a wide array of industry experiences.

In March, five finalists were selected for the 2017 Bertarelli Prize:

  • Day Zero Diagnostics combines genome sequencing and machine learning to modernise infectious disease diagnosis.
  • GEMS Samaritan Stations has developed a smart devices that reduces emergency response time by turning bystanders into first responders when every second counts.
  • Jane Diagnostics has produced an innovative, low-cost, accurate, rapid, and easy-to-use HPV diagnostic chip for early detection of cervical cancer.
  • Nanoshear has created a nanotechnology-based liquid embolic agent for immediate haemorrhage control in vascular injuries and bleeding patients.
  • UrSure Inc. prevents HIV by focusing on protecting vulnerable populations from infection.

Given the exceptional quality of all the finalists, it was a very difficult decision for the prize judges to select the winners; ultimately however, UrSure Inc. was awarded the Bertarelli Prize of $75,000 and Jane Diagnostics were awarded the runner-up prize of $25,000.

The team behind UrSure are no strangers to the Bertarelli Prize, having participated in the competition in 2016.  In the year which followed, Giffin Daughtridge and Helen Koenig were able to refine both their product and their business plan and ultimately impress the prize judges.

Ernesto Bertarelli commented:

I’d like to congratulate all the finalists and entrants for the Bertarelli Prize.  I’m confident that by taking part in the Challenge over the last year, you will have refined your business ideas and embraced the entrepreneurial spirit which is so important if you are to succeed in your ambition.

I’m delighted that Giffin and Helen of UrSure Inc. have been able to develop such an important medical tool which shows great promise in helping to reduce HIV infection.  I will watch the development of their company very carefully.

UrSure’s CEO and founder Giffin Daughtridge, commented:

Winning the Bertarelli Prize is an absolute game-changer for us.  We had enough funding to get through the next couple of months, but this will help us accelerate our timeline.

 

2017 Bertarelli Neuroscience Symposium

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Friday 7th of April saw the sixth annual Symposium of the Bertarelli Program in Translational Neuroscience and Neuronengineering take place at Campus Biotech in Geneva. Bringing together the five Bertarelli teams from EPFL and Harvard Medical School, the Symposium provides an opportunity for progress to be shared, for ideas to be discussed and for plans to be made for further collaboration. Encouraging achievements, including findings yet to be published, were presented for each of the projects, which are addressing hearing loss, macula degeneration and motion-corrected fMRI for children with autism.

As well as the talks from the five Bertarelli teams, the audience heard from five former inspirational Bertarelli Fellows – students from EPFL who had, as part of the Education component of the Program, had spent a year in Boston conducting Master’s research with an HMS-affiliated laboratory – about their experiences and work. There were also four highly engaging keynote speakers who addressed topics in and around the theme of this year’s Symposium: Perception, Learning and Memory (Neuroengineering Persepectives). Harvard’s Margaret Livingstone spoke about modules in the brain and how they develop for our vision perception, while New York University’s Cristina Alberini presented her work on molecular mechanisms of long-term memory storage, in particular the role of the IGF-2 (Insulin-life Growth Factor) protein, previously unknown as having a role in neurobiology. They were followed by EPFL’s Johannes Gräff, who shared his lab’s work in the emerging field of neuroepigenetics and its potential implications for long-term memory storage, particularly for those with Alzheimer’s Disease and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Finally, UPenn’s Michael Kahana gave fascinating insight into his work using mathematical modelling and computational techniques to study memory.

The Symposium drew to a close with words from EPFL’s President, Martin Vetterli, who spoke about how it was fitting that the Symposium was being held at Campus Biotech, a “fertile ground for interactions” and a “toy store for scientists.” He was followed by an impassioned speech from Sir Jackie Stewart, who urged those present to continue their drive to increase knowledge, to further progress in neuroscience, and to ensure that the next generation of scientists are given the teaching and the tools to solve the brain’s mysteries and illnesses, particularly Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia, an issue about which he actively campaigns. Lastly, Kirsty Bertarelli gave thanks on behalf of the Bertarelli Foundation to all who participated in the Symposium and to all who had combined to make it such a success.

Speaking afterwards, Ernesto Bertarelli said:

“This Symposium, at which our teams of scientists join together to share their work, is a demonstration of the mission of the Bertarelli Program as a whole: To foster collaboration, across continents and across disciplines. As with every Symposium we hold, to hear in person the extraordinary progress being made across our joint projects is to be hugely encouraged and I – and everyone in the room at Campus Biotech – left with great hope for what is being achieved now and what will be achieved in the future.”

Aldatu Biosciences is helping to overcome HIV drug resistance

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After winning the Bertarelli Prize in 2014, Aldatu Biosciences has continued developing their PANDAA technology which aims to improve HIV patient care by detecting antiretroviral drug resistance.  Since then, others have also recognised Aldatu’s potential and they were awarded the Verizon Powerful Answers Award and in 2015 awarded a Direct-to-Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant for approximately $1,500,000 over two years.

Co-founders, David Raiser and Iain MacLeod, travelled to Botswana to meet researchers at the Harvard AIDS Institute.  We went with them to find out how the Bertarelli Prize helped their businesses grow and how their technology might help HIV patients ensure they are receiving the correct treatment.

Herald win the 2016 Bertarelli Prize at Harvard’s iLab

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Each year, the Harvard i-lab holds the Deans’ Health & Life Sciences Challenge to encourage cross-disciplinary innovation and to solve some of the world’s toughest health problems.

The year’s five finalists were selected to present their business ideas at the i-lab Demo Day on Wednesday, 4th May, and compete in the final stage of the competition for the Bertarelli Prize.

Herald, whose healthcare software offers clinicians real-time access to clinical data, won the Bertarelli prize of $30,000 and the chance to incubate their idea in the Harvard i-lab through the summer. The company’s chief executive, Brad Diephuis, is an MD/MBA candidate, a dual degree that prepares graduates for a career in healthcare management and finance.

Pykus Therapeutics, a new company which makes a dissolvable device that doctors inject into a patient’s eye to make retinal surgery less painful, was selected as the Challenge’s first-runner up. They received $25,000 prize and summertime access to the i-lab incubator.

LuminOva takes great strides tackling infertility

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In 2015, LuminOva, a biotech start-up company based in Boston MA., won the Bertarelli Prize at Harvard University’s iLab.  The prize is awarded annually as part of the Deans’ Health and Life Sciences Challenge which encourages nascent businesses to develop and grow towards commercialisation.

Whilst many businesses enter the Challenge each year and benefit from the mentoring, workshops and judging process, only one can win the Bertarelli Prize.  Providing a welcome stamp approval, the Prize also comes with a substantial financial award which catapults the businesses forward and helps them to overcome barriers and hurdles to their success.

LuminOva is developing a new technology which could help infertile couples select the best embryos for IVF treatment.  Whilst still undergoing clinical trials, winning the Bertarelli Prize has accelerated  the development of the company and will hopefully bring their product to market more quickly – and in so doing, help people achieve their dream of becoming parents.