We are delighted to report the outcome of the seventh Imperial Confidence in Concept (ICiC) competition. The aim of the ICiC scheme is to accelerate the transition from discovery research to translational development projects by supporting preliminary work or feasibility studies to establish the viability of an approach. These awards ‘pump-prime’ the translation of novel therapeutics, devices and diagnostics towards clinical testing.
We had a fund of over £1.4million for the ICiC scheme this year, and this includes contributions from the MRC, NIHR Imperial BRC, Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund, EPSRC Impact Acceleration Accounts, and HEIF funding, as well as support from NIHR BRC at The Royal Marsden and The Institute of Cancer Research.
Professor Roberto Solari chairs our cross-College Panel, which includes Imperial academics from scientific, engineering and medical fields, as well as external industry experts. Over 70 applications were received this year, and the Panel was impressed with the high quality of applications. Proposals covered the full breadth of biomedical translational research across the College, including:
- ‘Stem cell-derived hepatocytes for high throughput antimalarial drug screening’ (Jake Baum and Wei Cue – Faculty of Natural Sciences & Medicine)
- ‘A device to prevent pressure ulcers using novel pressure equalisation technology’ (Spyros Masouros and Colin Boyle– Faculty of Engineering)
- ‘Development of a Food Standards Agency approved Nutritional Milk with a Legume-base for children with severe malnutrition’ (Kath Maitland and Gary Frost – Faculty of Medicine)
- ‘Novel, low-cost instrumentation for clinical histopathology of kidney disease’ (Paul French, Candice Roufosse, Terence Cook, Christopher Dunsby, and Mark Neil – Faculties of Natural Sciences & Medicine)
We are also pleased to announce a co-funded project with our colleagues at the NIHR BRC at The Royal Marsden and the Institute of Cancer Research:
- ‘Intratumoural multiplexed drug wafers for personalised chemotherapy’ – this project is a collaboration between Dr Adam Celiz (Imperial, Bioengineering) and Dr Udai Banerji (RMH).
The full list of investigators who have won 2019 ICiC funding:
- Prof Jake Baum & Dr Wei Cui (Departments of Life Sciences and Surgery & Cancer) – “Stem cell-derived hepatocytes for high throughput antimalarial drug screening”
- Dr Paul Bentley, Dr Ravi Vaidyanathan, Dr Etienne Burdet, & Prof Alison McGregor (Departments of Medicine, Mechanical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Surgery & Cancer) – “Play-Back: motivating core-muscle exercises with wearable sensors, haptics and interactive gaming”
- Prof Hugh Brady and Prof Matthew Fuchter (Departments of Life Sciences and Chemistry) – “Enhancement of NK cell cancer immunotherapy”
- Dr Adam Celiz and Dr Udai Banerji (Department of Bioengineering and NIHR BRC at The Royal Marsden & ICR) – “Intratumoural multiplexed drug wafers for personalised chemotherapy”
- Prof Dario Farina & Prof Emm Drakakis (Department of Bioengineering) – “High-information transfer non-invasive neural interface with the human spinal cord”
- Prof Paul French, Dr Candice Roufosse, Prof Terence Cook, Dr Christopher Dunsby, and Prof Mark Neil (Departments of Physics and Medicine) – “Novel, low-cost instrumentation for clinical histopathology of kidney disease”
- Prof Matthew Fuchter and Prof David Dexter (Departments of Chemistry and Medicine) – “Progressing SIRT2 as a novel target for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease”
- Prof Uta Griesenbach, Prof Eric Alton, Prof Mark Isalan, and Dr Robyn Bell (NHLI and Department of Life Sciences) – “Regulation of lentivirus-mediated gene expression for gene therapy in the lung”
- Dr Nir Grossman and Prof Mauricio Barahona (Departments of Medicine and Mathematics) – “PoC study of non-invasive phase-lock stimulation treatment for essential tremor”
- Prof Mark Isalan (Department of Life Sciences) – “Development of zinc finger platform to treat diseases of civilisation: a proof-of-concept in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)”
- Dr Gerald Larrouy-Maumus (Department of Life Sciences) – “MALDI-ToF mass spectrometry-based lipid fingerprint on intact bacteria allows to unlock the challenge of the discrimination of E.coli from Shigella species”
- Dr Daniel Leff and Prof Daniel Elson (Department of Surgery & Cancer) – “GLOW (Guiding Light to Optimise Wide local excisions): Intra-Operative Fluorescence Imaging and Spectroscopy to Optimise Breast Conserving Surgery”
- Prof Kath Maitland and Prof Gary Frost (Department of Medicine) – “Development of a Food Standards Agency approved Nutritional Milk with a Legume-base for children with severe malnutrition”
- Dr Spyros Masouros & Dr Colin Boyle (Department of Bioengineering) – “A device to prevent pressure ulcers using novel pressure equalisation technology”
- Prof Robin Shattock & Prof Wendy Barclay (Department of Medicine) – “Protective efficacy of a saRNA vaccine against influenza transmission in ferrets”
- Prof Molly Stevens, Prof Uta Griesenbach, Prof Eric Alton, and Dr Jelle Penders (Department of Materials and NHLI) – “V3-SPARTA: Viral Vector Verification using Single Particle Automated Raman Trapping Analysis”
- Prof Mengxing Tang and Dr Sevan Harput (Department of Bioengineering) – “Fast Super-resolution Ultrasound Image Processing – Prototype System Development for Clinical Translation”
- Prof Ed Tate & Dr Doryen Bubeck (Departments of Chemistry and Life Sciences) – “Novel inhibitors of CD59: breaking resistance to immunotherapy in cancer”
- Dr Nikolai Windbichler & Prof Mark Isalan (Department of Life Sciences) – “Validating the DIVERGE platform for gene-modulation therapy”
- Prof Xiao-Ning Xu and Prof Anastasios Karadimitris (Department of Medicine) – “Pre-clinical evaluation of anti-CD4 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) for the treatment of T cell malignancies”