| | | | Welcome to the final edition of the UniQuest newsletter for 2023 - a collaborative initiative of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research & Innovation) and UniQuest, The University of Queensland's commercialisation company.
In this edition, we are celebrating the year that was and some of our exciting commercialisation outcomes. These include the announcement that UQ's drug discovery entity, the Queensland Emory Drug Discovery Initiative (QEDDI), will accept projects from external institutions for the first time.
This is an exciting step to ensure its growth and leverage the expertise and capabilities of QEDDI staff to translate Australian biomedical research into drug candidates locally.
In 2023, we held four Research Commercialisation Workshops in total: Two for researchers and two for UQ professional staff. The feedback so far has been
excellent and we look forward to bringing UQ researchers and staff more exciting opportunities to collaborate in 2024.
Wishing you a gentle and restorative holiday season. | | | Professor Mark Blows
Deputy Vice-Chancellor
(Research & Innovation) | |
| Dr Dean Moss
CEO, UniQuest Pty Ltd |
| | Newsletter in Brief - QEDDI: Opening the doors to new projects in 2024.
- Workshops: Sharing the UniQuest factor with the world.
- AEA grants: Scheme awards 12 UQ research projects.
- UQ Start-Up News: Vaxxas in Zika Virus vaccine trial, Gene
Awards success.
- In review: UniQuest's year that was.
- Who Are We: Meet Dr Nigel Barrett.
| | | | | | QEDDI Medicinal Chemist Dr Hasanthi Wijesekera
and Medicinal Chemistry Team Leader Dr Angela Ko in the lab. | | | | | UniQuest commercialisation workshops hit new
highUniQuest expanded its Research Commercialisation Workshop program in 2023 due to popular demand.
More than 300 researchers and higher degree research students attended the two-day research commercialisation workshop at Customs House in 2023.
All attendees who completed feedback surveys said the workshops were a worthwhile investment of their time. An extraordinary 98 per cent agreed their attendance would help them make the most of future commercial opportunities in their research.
For the first time, UniQuest hosted two half-day commercialisation workshops tailored to UQ's professional staff. More than 120 attendees heard from the
UniQuest team about how intellectual property is managed at UQ and how they partner with researchers on the commercialisation journey.
Our workshops will be back in 2024: We hope to see you there!
Register your interest here. | |
| | | Partnerships shepherd AEA Seed grant
successThe commercial potential of UQ research has been recognised by the Federal Government's Australian Economic Accelerator (AEA) scheme, with more than $2.4 million awarded to progress research and technologies.
The investment into 12 UQ projects over Tranche 1 and Tranche 2 of the scheme will help bridge the gap between early stage research and commercialisation, progressing prospects beyond the "valley of death" where many traditionally fail.
Successful UQ projects included a Spinifex-based nanomaterials platform for climate-ready crops and mine-site restoration in partnership with Bulugudu Ltd and Cotton Seed Distributors Ltd; a single-shot anti-fertility vaccine in pigs
partnership with Brandon Biocatalyst; a proof-of-concept cattle tick vaccine trial for commercial adoption in partnership with Australian Agricultural Company Ltd; and an innovative treatment to sustain remission in rheumatoid arthritis patients in partnership with Arthritis Queensland.
Read more: Tranche 1 awardees and Tranche 2 recipients. | | | | | The UQ-developed and Vaxxas-commercialised high-density microarray patch (HD-MAP) has delivered a University of Adelaide-developed vaccine and
elicited an effective immune response to Zika virus in mice. UQ alum and Vaxxas researcher Dr Danushka Wijesundara said Zika virus was a risk to people across the Pacific, Southeast Asia, India, Africa and South and Central America.
“We can change the way we combat Zika virus with the HD-MAP patch because it is an effective, pain-free, simple to apply, and easy to store vaccination method,” Dr Wijesundara said. “The vaccine patch evoked T-cell responses that were about 270 per cent higher than from a needle or syringe vaccine delivery.”
Vaxxas, a UQ start-up spun out by UniQuest, makes
vaccine delivery needle-free by using a skin patch, and not a painful jab, to deliver up to 300 million doses a year. | | | | | UQ researchers and start-ups won four out of six awards at the prestigious Life Sciences Queensland (LSQ) GENE Awards in November. Vaxxas won Company of the Year for its development of the innovative High-Density Microarray Patch, a needle-free vaccine delivery platform. The technology has
the potential to transform vaccine delivery globally and strengthen Queensland’s position as a leader in biotechnology. Another UniQuest start-up ViceBio received the LSQ Radium Capital Emerging Innovator Award, in recognition of its work to develop new vaccines for life-threatening respiratory viral infectious diseases using UQ’s Molecular Clamp platform. UQ Vice-Chancellor Professor
Deborah Terry said the result highlighted the significant impact of the commercially relevant research being undertaken at UQ. | | | Senior Associate, Commercialisation -
Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA). Nigel was the first in his family to be born in Australia, with one of his two brothers born in England and the other born in Bahrain - a legacy of his father's early career in the oil industry. Following a conventional childhood in suburban Sydney, Nigel completed a degree in Food Technology at the University of NSW. No one was more surprised than him when, a few years later, he "accidentally" completed a PhD in Chemical Engineering.
He started work as a process engineer at David Gelatine, was married and became a father to three children.
Nigel's work soon took the young family to Brazil, where his five-year-old son quickly took to Portuguese.
"It was a fantastic opportunity to live in another country and become immersed in another culture but it was somewhat humbling to have to ask your five-year-old son to translate for you because his language was so much better than yours," he said.
On his return, Nigel
worked for Goodman Fielder Ingredients before the Australian business was sold and he was made redundant. He pivoted to Sydney Water where he ran a research program on wastewater treatment and distribution.
He joined Dairy Farmers as Innovation Manager - Cheese and Ingredients at a time when the dairy industry was undergoing dramatic changes.
When Dairy Farmers was sold to National Foods, Nigel moved to Melbourne for some eight years, returning to Sydney to care for his ailing father. A year-long plan to work as a volunteer food technologist in Vietnam was sadly cut short by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Nigel said he was excited to bring his diverse experiences and expertise to FaBA.
"Joining the team at FaBA is a wonderful chance to use all my skills and experiences to help grow the food industry and I'm really excited to be here," he
said.
The UQ-led FaBA project will supercharge commercialisation in the food and beverage industry with $50 million from the Federal Government's Trailblazer Universities Program.
FaBA recently released its Global Food and Beverage Trends Report: Opportunities to drive innovation in the Australian industry. Read it here. | | | | | | 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. | | | | | You have received this email because you subscribe to UQ's Research Bulletin.
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