| | | | Welcome to the most recent edition of the UniQuest newsletter - a collaborative initiative of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research & Innovation) and UniQuest, The University of Queensland's commercialisation company.
This quarterly communication showcases outcomes and new opportunities in the commercialisation of UQ intellectual property.
In this edition, we are highlighting an exciting licensing deal to a global water company, as well as promising new developments from UQ researchers in partnership with our drug discovery entity, the Queensland Emory Drug Discovery Initiative (QEDDI).
We are also encouraged by the results of the Survey of Commercialisation Outcomes from Public
Research published by Knowledge Commercialisation Australasia last week. Once again, through UniQuest's efforts, UQ leads the Group of Eight universities in three key measures: commercialisation revenue, number of active start-up companies and equity held in our start-up companies.
Next week, our second Research Commercialisation Workshop for 2023 will
take place at Customs House. It should be a great event, and for those who will be joining us, we look forward to seeing you there! | | | Professor Mark Blows
Deputy Vice-Chancellor
(Research & Innovation) | | |
Dr Dean Moss
CEO, UniQuest Pty Ltd |
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Newsletter in Brief - Licensed: High water mark for innovative UQ flood monitoring
system.
- QEDDI: New targets for novel drugs.
- UQ Start-Up News: EMVision wins AFR prize, Trioda Wilingi Pty Ltd success at UQ Research Partnerships and Translation Awards.
- PM's Pick: UQ venom researcher wins innovation in science prize
- All Staff Expo: We asked UQ researchers if they could commercialise anything, what would it be?
- Who Are We: What makes us tick at UniQuest.
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| | | Associate Professor Simon Albert (left) with Dr Nick Hutley and their camera tool on the banks of the Brisbane River. | | | High water mark for innovative UQ flood monitoring system
A tool developed by researchers at The University of Queensland that measures flood water depth and velocity will be sold globally after it was licensed to US-based company, Xylem Water Solutions.Associate Professor Simon Albert and Dr Nick Hutley from UQ’s School of Civil Engineering invented an automated system to provide real-time water monitoring during natural disasters, when it can be dangerous to manually measure rising water. The camera-based tool uses advanced 3D stereo computer vision, machine-learning and cloud analytics to measure water height and velocity, and allows water resource managers to access data and make decisions remotely.
It is already in use across Queensland, the Murray-Darling Basin, Tasmania and at sites in New Zealand, Europe and the US. | |
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World-first skin cancer treatment for transplant patients seeks investorResearchers are appealing for funding to launch clinical trials into a novel drug which could prevent and treat skin cancer in transplant patients.
UQ Frazer Institute Associate Professor James Wells said the novel drug was discovered and developed in partnership with UniQuest's Queensland Emory Drug Discovery Initiative (QEDDI), a small molecule drug discovery capability based at UQ's St Lucia campus.
It comes as the research behind Q-2361 was published in The Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer. | | | | | | | New target to beat cancer drug resistanceUQ researchers have identified a novel drug target with the potential to overcome drug resistance and prevent tumour regrowth in cancer
patients.
Associate Professor Helmut Schaider from UQ's Frazer Institute said the newly identified molecule was not currently a target for treatment, opening the potential for drug development.
Dr Schaider partnered with the Queensland Emory Drug Discovery Initiative (QEDDI), a business unit of UniQuest, to work on first-in-class small molecule inhibitors as novel anticancer therapeutics.
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EMVision Medical Devices has been named the top innovator in the health category in the 2023 Australian Financial Review BOSS Most Innovative Companies list.
EMVision has developed a portable brain imaging device to quickly diagnose traumatic brain injuries, like strokes, at point-of-care.
The device was the brainchild of UQ co-inventors Professor
Amin Abbosh and Emeritus Professor Stuart Crozier, both from the School of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology.
EmVision was formed as a UQ start-up in 2017 and listed on the ASX in November, 2018. | | | | | Trioda Willingi has won the UniQuest Commercialisation Impact Award at the UQ Research Partnerships and Translation Awards.
The awards recognise outstanding high-impact collaborative research partnerships and celebrate the success of UQ researchers who have achieved excellent outcomes and impact through industry engagement.
Trioda Wilingi, a spin-out from UQ, will use traditional Indigenous knowledge of spinifex from the Queensland outback to develop injectable medical gels, following an agreement between Bulugudu Ltd (owner of the Indjaladji-Dhidhanu people) and UniQuest.
Watch the video here. | | | Professor Glenn King with
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the Prime Minister's Prizes for Science. | | UQ venom researcher awarded PM's innovation in science prize Congratulations to Institute of Molecular Biosciences Professor Glenn King who received the 2023 Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation. Professor King was recognised for pioneering using peptides from Australian funnel-web spider venom for sustainable crop protection and potentially human therapeutics. He first founded the company, Vestaron, which develops safe and eco-friendly insecticides for farmers. He is now the Chief Scientific Officer for Infensa Bioscience, a UQ startup founded in 2022 alongside UQ's Associate Professor Nathan Palpant, which is developing spider venom therapeutics to help treat strokes and heart attacks.
Infensa plans to start Australian-based clinical trials for
heart-related therapeutics in 2024. | | | | | | | UniQuest Manager, Marketing and Communications Esther Haskell chats to UQ staff at the All Staff Expo. | | | All Staff Expo: UniQuest shines
at UQ's inaugural showcase
We took the chance to ask UQ researchers if they could commercialise anything in the world, what would it be? Check out their fantastic responses below. | | |
Sheila Dmmeh Associate Professor
Centre for Animal Science, QAAFI
"I'd like to see a diagnostic tool to detect viral coinfections in livestock species across Australia and beyond. It needs to be simple, practical and able to be used by anyone." | | | Sukanya Manoharan Student Admin Assistant
"This is a tough question but I think it would be great to commercialise something that would improve the climate to benefit people and help stop climate change." | |
| Jun Wan Visiting scholar, School of Biomedical Sciences
"I do research about diabetes so it would be great to see a product commercialised that would help people maintain a normal level of blood sugar." | | | Varsha Kommajosyula Senior Research Assistant
"I'd like to see a vaccine against Covid. I work in the Covid-19 vaccine team at UQ and we've already come exceptionally close." | | |
Senior Director, Commercialisation - Life Sciences at UniQuest.
Tamsin grew up in rural Kenya and moved to the UK to study when she was 16. She obtained her PhD in Biochemistry from Cambridge University and then moved into a biotech company called Acambis, which was commercialising technology from the lab.
Chasing sunshine, scuba diving and manta rays, Tamsin initially moved to Australia to work at UQ on industry-focused vaccine projects, which saw her file patents and form a start-up with UniQuest.
Tamsin was the Research and Development Director for the Wound Management Innovation Cooperative Research Centre, Research Director for Implicit Bioscience and managed research and
development for two Brisbane-based biotech start-ups.
Eventually, Tamsin's work brought her full circle back to UniQuest, where she now works to commercialise the output of researchers, including some who she previously published alongside.
Tamsin said she enjoyed her role at UniQuest.
"I enjoy the diversity of science, and the opportunity to catalyse the journey from academic finding, to technology with the potential to impact patients," she said. | | | | | | UniQuest acknowledges the Traditional Owners and their custodianship of the lands on which The University of Queensland and UniQuest are situated.
We pay our respects to their Ancestors and their descendants, who continue cultural and spiritual connections to Country. We recognise their valuable contributions to Australian and global society. | | | | |
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