MedTech SuperConnector Newsletter
December 2019
Here at MedTech SuperConnector we’re excited to announce the next cohort of our Venture Accelerator programme, a constantly innovating accelerator for researchers at our eight partner institutions. There are eleven ventures in our latest cohort, which we kicked off in late October with an intensive three-day entrepreneurial bootcamp. We’re looking forward to working with them over the next eight months and sharing their success stories along the way.
In MTSC team, we have also been exploring the best ways to support innovation by visiting centres of good practice and meeting communities who work in similar spaces. Hiten Thakrar, MTSC Programme Manager, joined the delegation at the annual Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers , met the team at Hello Tomorrow in Paris and joined Imperial’s Industry Partnerships and Commercialisation team at the Seoul BioHub. Hiten says: “Learning how other institutions and centres of entrepreneurship, both locally and globally, support their entrepreneurs is crucial to remaining relevant and innovative in a fast-developing field and to allowing the best ideas to flourish. By engaging far and wide we can bring diverse learnings back to the SuperConnector and ultimately into the consortium of institutions that support the programme.”
In this issue:
- Learn about Cohort Three
- Meet an Entrepreneur
- Cohort Four applications and collaborations
- Cohort Two Showcase in brief
- Robotics in different spaces
Please feel free to forward this newsletter on to a colleague or contact would find it useful.
A lung therapy trumpet and other medtech innovations
The participants on the new cohort of MTSC are developing technologies that include a novel lung therapy trumpet, nanotechnology for bone repair and a home hormone monitoring sensor.
Starting the programme with an intensive bootcamp gave participants the tools and knowledge to road map their journey, dissect the stakeholder landscape and hit the ground running. Meeting every two months, participants will share their progress with a panel of experts and their peers for critical feedback. Participants will also have access to an Innovation Navigator to help them unpick any blockers or think about challenges differently.
Meet an Entrepreneur
Jack Herrington
Amphura are working to put hormone monitoring into the hands of a patient, through the development of point-of-care diagnostics that does not require a lab to deliver results. Learn more >>
Ben Storey
Ben and his team are developing medtech products that are a unique collaboration between science, technology and music. Designed to enable sufferers of cystic fibrosis and asthma, unique therapeutic methods that are engaging and creative. Learn more >>
Dongyuan Li
Haptic Illusion are creating a new immersive physical examination training device. The method has the potential to both increase the quality of medical training whilst reducing cost at the same time. Learn more >>
Register your interest: Cohort Four
Applications for the next cohort of MTSC will open in winter 2020. If you are interested in collaborating or learning more about how you or your organisation can get involved, please contact a member of the MTSC team directly at mtsc@imperial.ac.uk.
Signup here to be the first to find out when applications open
Cohort Two Showcase
The second cohort of MTSC, Challenge Accelerator, invited the best minds from across our partner institutions to hack solutions to the programme’s challenge of mental health, wellbeing and happiness was open to postdocs, PhD and master’s students from all academic backgrounds. In only six months Affect.AI is set for clinical trials, BioBreathe is user testing and RetroVille has its app in the AppStore! We’ll be keeping a close eye to on the teams to see where they are heading and keep everyone updated on successes.
Robotics in different spaces
Robotics is a diverse and disparate field with researchers working in many different areas. Cohort One saw two entirely different projects in the field of robotics with completely different purposes.
Royal College of Art researcher Caroline Yan Zheng’s project SimTouch is using soft robotics to provide comfort through simulated affective touch (STA) for people coping with stressful situations alone. Miniaturisation to a wearable size and the development of an app have allowed for STA techniques to be more portable and personalised. She is currently collaborating with the Institute of Cancer Research and Imperial College London to improve patients’ experience during radiotherapy and imaging sessions.
Samuel Wilson from Imperial founder of startup SERGE Technologies, offering an unobtrusive wearable system for detecting muscle vibration for the purpose of prosthetic limb control. Samuel Wilson said: “the new sensors we have are very sensitive […] That means that they [amputees] can think about the task they are doing and not how to control the hand.” SERG Technologies has secured a pre-seed round of more than £450,000 and has opened offices in London and Athens.
By Augusta Critchley
Article text (exluding photos or graphics) © MedTech SuperConnector. Photos and graphics subject to third party copyright used with permission of © MedTech SuperConnector