The third annual IdeaSpring conference – held at the Biocant Biotechnology Innovation Center in Cantanhede, Portugal on February 19, 2010 – offered MIT-Portugal Program Bioengineering Systems students the most intensive opportunity to date to interact with academics, industry affiliates of the Program, and representatives of other companies. Each year, IdeaSpring brings together MIT-Portugal’s “Bio-Teams”: groups of first-year Bioengineering Systems students and their faculty advisors. These teams devise go-to-market strategies for emerging technologies that are in development at Portuguese research labs – strategies that could help launch each innovation in the marketplace. This year's competition for the best strategy will be held in July.  Helena Vieira of BioAlvo, one of the companies represented at IdeaSpring As announced at the February conference, the new Bio-Teams and their projects are as follows:
• Optimization of Wheat Straw Bioethanol Production under Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation Process
Principal Investigator: José Teixeira – IBB/UM
Tutor: Isabel Rocha
Students: Joana Rosado Coelho, Nelson Monteiro, Nuno Faria
• Mic-Rapid: Rapid Kit for the Determination of the Minimal Inhibitory Concentration
Principal Investigator: Carla Carvalho – IBB/IST
Tutor: Miguel Prazeres
Students - Michaela Simcikova, Mónica Coelho, Rimenys Junior Carvalho
• Stimuli-Responsive Cellulosic Membranes Built from Micro and Nano Helicoidal Fibers
Principal Investigator: Maria Helena Godinho – FCT/UNL
Tutor: Fernanda Llussá
Students: Ana Rita Domingues, Pedro Gouveia, Shantesh Hede
• “Green” Impregnation of Biopolymers for Application in Food, Cosmetic or Pharmaceutical Packaging
Principal Investigator: Catarina Duarte – IBET-ITQ/UNL
Tutor: Frederico Ferreira
Students: Abigail Horn, Íris Batalha, Rúben Pereira
• Strain Optimization Workbench
Principal Investigator: Miguel Rocha – DI/UM
Tutor: Lígia Rodrigues
Students: Pedro Evangelista, Paulo Maia, Carlos Boto
Encouragement from a Colleague
According to Prof. Lígia Rodrigues (U Minho), one of MIT-Portugal’s Bio-Teams course instructors and an organizer of the annual event, another highlight of this year's preliminary event was a presentation by Francisca Eiriz, a member of last year’s winning Bio-Team. Eiriz, an MIT-Portugal PhD candidate, spurred this year’s class on with her enthusiasm for the competition and her presentation about last year’s winning strategy, which involved “FuNid: Functional Identification of New Neurons and Oligodendrocytes Differentiating from Neural Stem Cells.” (Read more about last year’s winning team.)
Also of special interest, Prof. Rodriques said, was a visit by the students to Critical Software, a company that is partnering with MIT-Portugal and others on the Critical Challenge – a competition for the design and construction of an autonomous electric vehicle for use in cities. The company, she said, shared useful insights about technology transfer and innovation.
Intellectual Property Workshop
At Biocant on February 19, the day before the conference, the Bioengineering Systems students participated in a workshop on intellectual property that featured talks by IP attorneys as well as by representatives of the Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial (INPI); the Divisão de Inovação e Transferências do Saber, GAPI–Biocant; and Biotrend.
(More information about last year’s IdeaSpring competition is available here.) |
