The 2016 Deans’ Health and Life Sciences Challenge at Harvard’s iLab is nearing its final stages as the finalists for this year’s competition have been announced. From over 60 applicants, five student-led teams have been selected, one of which will be awarded the Bertarelli Prize on May 4th.
This year’s finalists are:
- Antera produces an all-natural solution formulated to safely reduce the risk of peanut allergy development in infants.
- Buoy creates a simple and safe way to understand your symptoms, answer questions about your illness, and get an assessment of possible causes.
- Herald makes healthcare safer by offering clinicians real-time access to clinical data exactly when and how they want it.
- Pykus Therapeutics develops a dissolvable intraocular device to make retinal surgery less painful and more successful.
- Searna Technologies provides uniquely sensitive and affordable molecular diagnostics for the non-invasive detection of cancer.
The Bertarelli Foundation is delighted to support the iLab and the Deans’ Challenge; since its inception in 2014, over 100 nascent student-led teams have been mentored towards commercialising their business ideas in the health and life science sector.
The previous winners have already had a huge impact in improving human health around the world. Aldatu Biosciences, the 2014 winners, have developed a diagnostic test for HIV drug resistance which is being trialed in Botswana, a country with an historically very high prevalence of drug-resistance. And LuminOva, the 2015 winners, are commercialising a method of detecting the viability of human embryos to increase the probability of successful invitro-fertilisation.