Further Development of the Project Could Lead to Drugs to Treat Brain Injuries and Neurodegenerative Diseases The Second MIT Portugal Program Bio-Teams Competition finals were held on July 15 at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon. After a semester working with biotechnologies developed at Portuguese research centers, seven teams presented their final projects to an audience composed mainly of guests from venture capital firms, biotechnology companies, academia and technology licensing groups. A panel of experts was invited to evaluate the technologies and the work conducted by the Bio-Teams. The project with most promising commercial application – Functional identification of new neurons and oligodendrocytes differentiating from neural stem cells – was awarded the 5,000€ Biocant Ventures Prize. The prize goes toward commercial development of the winning project – market research geared toward the launching of a company, for example. The Winning Project The Principal Investigator on the winning project is Prof. João O. Malva from the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC) at the University of Coimbra, and the MIT Portugal students on the team were bioengineering PhD students Francisca Eiriz (UMinho) and João Arrais (IST), and Ricardo Torcato (FEUP), a PhD student in engineering design and advanced manufacturing. .jpg "Francisca Eiriz and João Arrais, two of the three students with the winning Bio-Teams project, accepting the award at IST.") Francisca Eiriz and João Arrais, two of the three students with the winning Bio-Teams project, accepting the award at IST. The technology developed at CNC, which is covered by international patents, involves a novel method for fast identification of functional immature/stem cells, astrocytes, progenitors, neurons and oligodendrocytes differentiating from neural stem cell cultures. The hope is that further development could lead to the identification of new drugs for brain repair therapies, including trauma, and neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. The Seven Technologies in This Year’s Competition The Bio-Teams’ 2009 efforts started in Biocant, Cantanhede last March, at the Second Annual IdeaSpring Conference, where the seven Bio-Teams technologies were publicly presented. Since then, the students developed go-to-market strategies for their technologies and attended seminars and classes on entrepreneurship, innovation, intellectual property and market assessment. The following is a full list of the 2009 Bio-Teams Competition participants: - Functional identification of new neurons and oligodendrocytes differentiating from neural stem cells. PI: João O. Malva, CNC, Univ. Coimbra. Bio-Team: Francisca Eiriz, João Arrais and Ricardo Torcato.
- Diagnostic gene probe for the patulin mycotoxin in food and drink. PI: Russel Paterson – IBB, UMinho. Bio-Team: Filipa Castro, Roberto Gallardo and Swarna Pandian.
- Optical Biochips. PI: João Pedro Conde, INESC. BioTeam: André Fialho, Fabiana Fernandes and Miguel Queirós.
- Phage-Based Magnetoelastic Wireless Biosensor for the Detection of Salmonella in Food Stuff. PI: Joana Azeredo – IBB, UMinho. Bio-Team: Federico Cismondi; Filipe Castro and Sara Matias.
- Real-time pathogens bio-sensing based on Ion Jelly® technology. PI: Nuno Lourenço, IBB, IST. Bio-Team: Jorge Carvalho, Maria Pereira and Sezin Aday.
- Detoxification of ochratoxin A containing commodities (Detox-Ochra). PI: Luís Abrunhosa, IBB, UMinho. Bio-Team: Geisa Lopes and Silvia Mihalia.
- Development of anti-microbial coatings for biomedical devices. PI: Sandra Carvalho, Dep. Física, UMinho. Bio-Team: António Vicente, Marco Mercier and Paulo Meloå.
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