Clockwise from top left: entrepreneurial award winners Matt de Vries, Freddie Whiting and Alex Carroll
There was a celebration of entrepreneurship at the heart of our ‘Above and Beyond’ staff and student awards ceremony here at the ICR this year – one of the highlights of our calendar.
Our innovation awards gave a chance to shine a light on the importance of entrepreneurial spirit, as well as the importance of commercialisation in translating our discoveries into new treatments.
And all those nominated in the innovation category were fantastic examples of our commitment to innovation.
Industry partnerships
Staff here in the Business and Innovation Office (BIO) at the ICR – where we oversee our partnerships and collaborations with industry and other partners – made two nominations to the award.
One was overall innovation award winner Dr Freddie Whiting, who is developing a set of drug resistance assays called Evolutionary-Informed Resistance Assays (EIRAs). He’s a postdoctoral research fellow in the lab of Professor Trevor Graham, who leads our Centre for Evolution and Cancer.
Dr Whiting’s pre-clinical cellular assays aim to help those working in drug discovery and development – for example in pharmaceutical companies – to better understand resistance to new oncology drugs before they are used to treat patients.
Dr Whiting and Professor Graham hope that the assays will be used to guide pharmaceutical drug design decisions – by revealing whether resistance is likely to develop to drug candidates, and to provide insights into the mechanisms of likely resistance, through insights into the biology of a drug’s target.
Dr Whiting won our award for his efforts in exploring various innovation and commercialisation routes to progress his discoveries, including through participating in two phases of the Innovate UK-funded ICURe programme.
ICURe has helped Dr Whiting to carry out market research and explore development routes for the assays, including establishing a potential spin-out company or partnering with another company to further develop them.
Feedback collected during the ICURe programmes also identified the discovery of new rational drug combinations as a promising application of the resistance assays.
Dr Whiting has also taken a collaborative approach, engaging with potential customers and with experts in industry to guide the commercial development of the new technology. This included presenting his work to companies and funders at the business partnering conference BioTrinity.
Cross-divisional working
Also highly commended in the innovation category was Divisional Scientific Operations Project Manager Alex Carroll.
And there were two other ICR staff members who were shortlisted for the award – and who also represented a brilliant contribution to innovation here at the ICR: Shaikh Ameen, Desktop Support Project Manager in our Digital Services team, and Rebecca Wilson, Senior Scientific Officer in our Division of Breast Cancer Research.
Alex makes a big difference by supporting the BIO in our work with the Division of Breast Cancer Research – translating their research through a range of commercial and non-commercial collaborations and partnerships.
“As well as understanding the needs of her research colleagues, Alex also understands the BIO and helps to build effective channels of communication and move things on,” said our Director of Business and Innovation, Dr Jon Wilkinson, in our nomination for Alex. “She acts as a further bridge with our research community, supporting the effective flow of information in a friendly and helpful way.
“Alex’s understanding of how things fit within the bigger picture – for example whether a project will help support publication, support funding, or lead to new studies and partnerships – is also really valuable.”
Supervisor of the year
There was another special award given at our Above and Beyond ceremony.
Our Supervisor of the Year, awarded by our Student Committee, was won this year by Professor Chris Bakal for “exceptional dedication to shaping the academic and professional future of his students, supporting ambitious thinking and encouraging the exploration of unconventional ideas.”
This ambitious thinking is exemplified by Matt de Vries, a PhD student in the Bakal lab who himself won Cancer Research Horizon's Early-career Entrepreneur of the Year award earlier this year.
Matt won the award from Cancer Research Horizons – the innovation arm of Cancer Research UK – in a very strong field of shortlisted candidates from leading UK universities for “inspiring an entrepreneurial attitude”.
We are currently working with Matt and Professor Bakal to support the launch of a potential new company.
These are just a few examples of entrepreneurship – and all led by our early-career researchers. Look out over the next year for more news on our entrepreneurial science.
Find out more
If you’d like to keep up with the latest news on entrepreneurship and innovation at the ICR, sign up to our email newsletter Connections. For our partnering portfolio or more information on investment opportunities in emerging spinout companies, email [email protected].
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