Imperial Confidence in Concept (ICiC) Scheme Awards Funding to 23 projects

The Faculty is delighted to report the outcome of the second Imperial Confidence in Concept (ICiC) competition to support the College-wide development of novel devices, diagnostics and therapeutics for areas of unmet clinical need. A fund in excess of £1.2million was made available from the MRC (Confidence in Concept fund), NIHR Imperial BRC, Imperial Innovations, Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund and as well as support from NIHR BRC at The Royal Marsden and The Institute of Cancer Research. The ICiC scheme provides vital pilot funding to bridge the potential gap between discovery research and well-developed applications for MRC Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme / Developmental Clinical Studies Funding Scheme support.

The Panel, including external members and chaired by Professor Roberto Solari (NHLI), was delighted with the high quality and wide range of applications. Examples of the breadth of funded proposals include: ‘A wearable sensor for fetal movement’ (Nowlan), ‘Towards a compact proton irradiator for in vitro radiobiological studies’ (Posocco), ‘Donor TCRVa24 iNKT cells in the prevention pf acute-graft-versus-host disease in allogeneic haemopoietic stem cell transplantation’ (Karadimitris), ‘Intranasal diagnostics in food allergy: a feasibility study (INDY project)’ (Turner) and ‘The development of highly specific SIRT2 inhibitors as a novel treatment for Parkinson’s disease’ (Fuchter). We are also pleased to announce two co-funded projects with our colleagues at the NIHR BRC at The Royal Marsden and ICR from Drs Ed Tate (ICL) and Bissan Al-Lazikani (ICR) and Professors Bob Brown (ICL) and David Cunningham (ICR).

The investigators who will receive awards of up to £70,000 are:

Dr Jake Baum (PI) & Dr Keith Willison (Departments of Life Sciences & Chemistry)
Professor Maria Belvisi (PI) & Dr Mark Birrell (NHLI)
Dr Paul Bentley (PI) & Professor Etienne Burdet (Departments of Medicine & Bioengineering)
Professors Bob Brown & David Cunningham (PIs), Dr Irene Chong, Dr Naureen Starling, Dr Ian Chau, Dr Sheela Rao, Dr David Watkins (Department of Surgery & Cancer, ICL and The GI Unit, Institute of Cancer Research)
Professor Tony Cass (PI) & Dr Sanjiv Sharma (Department of Chemistry)
Dr Robert Dickinson (PI) & Professor Nicholas Franks (Departments of Surgery & Cancer and Life Sciences)
Dr Andrew Edwards (PI), Professor David Holden, Dr Thomas Webb, & Dr Dominic Marshall (Department of Medicine)
Dr Dan Elson (PI), Dr Neil Clancy, & Professor George Hanna (Department of Surgery & Cancer)
Dr Matthew Fuchter (PI), Professor David Dexter, Professor Michael Sternberg, & Professor Eric Lam (Departments of Chemistry, Medicine, Life Sciences and Surgery & Cancer)
Professor Roger Gunn (PI), Dr William Hallett, Dr Jonathan Howard, & Dr Philip Noonan (Department of Medicine)
Professor Anastasios Karadimitris (PI) & Dr Aristeidis Chaidos (Department of Medicine)
Dr Mauritius Kleijnen (Department of Medicine)
Dr Spyros Masouros (PI), Professor Jonathan Clasper, & Professor Justin Cobb (Departments of Bioengineering and Surgery & Cancer)
Dr Thomas McKinnon (PI) & Professor Mike Laffan (Department of Medicine)
Professor James Moore Jr (Department of Bioengineering)
Dr Niamh Nowlan (PI), Dr Ravi Vaidyanathan, Professor Alison McGregor, & Mr Martin Lupton (Departments of Bioengineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Surgery & Cancer)
Professor Nicholas Peters (PI) & Dr Chris Cantwell (NHLI)
Dr Piero Posocco (PI), Dr Jurgen Pozimski, Dr Matthew Williams, Dr Nelofer Syed (Departments of Physics, Surgery & Cancer, and Medicine)
Dr Robert Snelgrove (NHLI)
Professor Molly Stevens (PI), Professor Michael Levin, & Dr Philip Howes (Departments of Materials and Medicine)
Dr Ed Tate (PI), Professor Bissan Al-Lazikani, and Professor Julian Blagg (Department of Chemistry, ICL and Cancer Therapeutics Unit, Institute of Cancer Research)
Dr Paul Turner (PI), Professor John Warner, Dr Robert Boyle, & Dr Claudia Gore (Department of Medicine)
Professor Ramesh Wigneshweraraj (PI), Professor Steve Matthews, & Dr Serge Mostowy (Departments of Medicine and Life Sciences)

Dr Kimberley Trim
Research Strategy Officer
Faculty of Medicine

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *