Winners of NovaUCD’s 2023 Innovation Awards announced
NovaUCD has announced the recipients of its annual innovation awards which highlight successes made in areas of knowledge transfer, consultancy, entrepreneurship and the promotion of an innovation culture, by members of the University College Dublin (UCD) research, innovation and entrepreneurial community.
A total of several awards, including the main 2023 NovaUCD Innovation Award, were presented by Prof Mark Rogers, acting UCD president during an event held in the UCD University Club.
Among this year’s awardees are the founders of Aer Therapeutics, DOCOsoft and seamlessCARE and the inventor of a vaccine candidate for Melioidosis, a potentially fatal tropical disease, which has been licensed to Poolbeg Pharma.
Innovation
The 2023 NovaUCD Innovation Award, which recognises excellence in innovation or of successes achieved in the commercialisation of UCD research or other intellectual activity over a number of years, was awarded to Prof Stefan Oscarson, UCD School of Chemistry and Prof Stephen Carrington who retired from the UCD School of Veterinary Medicine in 2016.
They received the award in recognition of their successful and longstanding research collaboration with Prof John Fahy, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). The focus of this collaboration was understanding why mucus in the lungs of people with respiratory diseases is thick, sticky and difficult to cough up and to develop new treatment strategies to help such patients breathe more easily.
The UCD-UCSF research collaboration led to the filing of a patent application for a novel mucolytic drug to address a large unmedical need for patients with mucus-associated lung diseases. These diseases include, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD), asthma, cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis.
Prof Stefan Oscarson said, “It’s really exciting times for me now, when after more than 40 years of academic research involving drug and vaccine development, seeing an excellent and fun team effort leading to the possibility of a lead candidate going into human clinical trials. It feels great to receive the NovaUCD Innovation Award with Steve as a recognition of this achievement.”
Invention
The recipient of the 2023 NovaUCD Invention of the Year Award is Dr Joseph Sweeney, a research fellow in the UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering.
He received this a ward in recognition of disruptive biosensors which have been developed by him and his research team. The biosensors are based on genetically engineered bacteria, in combination with a dissolved oxygen probe, and can identify the concentrations of specific organic analytes within bioprocesses in real-time. Under the current design, this invention, which has been patented, consists of a number of automated biosensors each dedicated to identify and measure a specific analyte, including sugars and volatile fatty acids, in real-time.
This platform technology has commercial applications in a number of industrial bioprocessing sectors to improve the efficiency in bioprocessing operations. These include, green biorefineries, anaerobic digestion, food and drink processing, precision fermentation and other fermentation sectors and water and wastewater treatment.
Licence
The recipient of the 2023 NovaUCD Licence of the Year Award is associate professor Siobhán McClean, UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, whose research interests focus on understanding bacteria that cause lung infections.
Last year Poolbeg Pharma signed an exclusive licence agreement with UCD through NovaUCD, for a late preclinical stage vaccine candidate for Melioidosis, a potentially fatal tropical disease, invented by associate professor McClean and her team. There is no current approved vaccine available for Melioidosis. The Melioidosis vaccine candidate is being developed by Poolbeg as POLB 003.
On receiving the 2023 NovaUCD Licence of the Year Award, McClean said: “It is a pleasure to receive this Award on behalf of everyone who has worked on our vaccine candidates over the past few years. I look forward to seeing our licensed Melioidosis vaccine candidate progress to human studies in the very near future.”
Spin-out
The recipient of the 2023 NovaUCD Spin-out of the Year Award is seamlessCARE, a digital health start-up. seamlessCARE is focused on developing and rolling-out innovative assistive technologies to enhance communication and support the care of adults and children with complex needs such as autism, acquired brain injury, dementia, and intellectual disability.
The company was founded in 2021 by Dr Aviva Cohen, Ian Kennedy and Dr Çağrı Çubukçu as a spin-out from the UCD School Mechanical and Materials Engineering.
In the last year seamlessCARE launched Empathic its first app and API, which uses artificial intelligence to interpret the emotions being expressed by non-verbal individuals as they vocalise. In addition the company secured €700,000 in seed funding from angel investor and former HSE chairman Dr Frank Dolphin and Enterprise Ireland, located at NovaUCD, grew the team to six people and established a branch in Turkey to facilitate the direct hire of development personnel.
Founder
The recipient of the 2023 NovaUCD Founder of the Year Award is Aidan O’Neill, founder and CEO, DOCOsoft, an insurance technology company headquartered at NexusUCD. DOCOsoft is an innovative provider of claims management solutions for the global property and casualty (P&C) insurance and reinsurance markets.
Since it was established in 2008 DOCOsoft has become a leading provider of state-of-the-art claims management solutions for the Lloyd’s insurance market in London and the global P&C insurance and reinsurance markets.
On receiving the 2023 NovaUCD Founder of the Year Award, Aidan O’Neill, said: “It’s a real honour to be singled out for recognition with the NovaUCD Founder of the Year Award. Over the last 15 years, DOCOsoft has grown quickly from a start-up with big ideas into a thriving insurance technology business with a leading-edge proposition in the specialist markets we serve. Our market-leading technology transforms the way insurance businesses operate, helping them maximise performance and deliver an enhanced service to their customers.”
Consultancy
The recipient of the 2023 NovaUCD Consultancy of the Year Award is Dr Stephen Davis, UCD School of Archaeology. In recent years Dr Davis has carried out 12 consultancy projects, through ConsultUCD, using ALS (Airborne Laser Scanning), also known as LiDAR analysis, for multiple County Councils across Ireland.
In these projects he has used LiDAR data to detect archaeological features in the landscape where Councils/Transport Infrastructure Ireland have planned to construct new roads or motorways, or as part of Council-led heritage projects.
These projects identified many hundreds of potential archaeological features that might otherwise have been impacted, providing advance warning to road construction projects of potential impacts. This has enabled construction companies and County Councils to understand the impact of their locally planned projects and to adjust their plans as required.
Innovation Champion
The recipient of the 2023 NovaUCD Innovation Champion of the Year Award is Dr Eoin O’Cearbhaill, associate professor in Biomedical Engineering, UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. Dr O’Cearbhaill is co-director of the UCD BE and ME Biomedical Engineering programmes and is also the director of the UCD Centre for Biomedical Engineering and a funded investigator with the SFI Research Centres, Cúram, I-Form and Amber.
Dr O’Cearbhaill is focused on the translation of medical devices from concept through to clinical use and his research interests include; medical device innovation, design and commercialisation, particularly minimally invasive devices and delivery systems.
Acting UCD president Prof Rogers said: “The NovaUCD Innovation Awards are a key annual event at UCD recognising and highlighting successes achieved by our research, innovation and entrepreneurial communities across the University and I congratulate all those who have received awards. I would also like to take the opportunity of wishing them ongoing success in the future as they continue to deliver economic and societal impact through their commercialisation, consultancy, entrepreneurial and innovation activities.”
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