̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Milner Therapeutics Institute

10 Cambridge AI spinouts

skbf2 — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 15:20:09 +0000

Meet 10 Cambridge spinouts, all hoping to harness the potential of AI for the good of the planet and its people.

Hitting the right note for innovation in Cambridge

skbf2 — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 19:19:54 +0000

Kathryn Chapman, Executive Director of Innovate Cambridge, on the secrets of successful innovation and her ambitious plans for innovation in Cambridge and beyond.

Cambridge joins forces with ARIA to fast-track radical new technologies to revolutionise brain health

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 12:57:22 +0000

̽��ֱ��collaboration, which includes researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, aims to accelerate progress on new neuro-technologies, including miniaturised brain implants designed to treat depression, dementia, chronic pain, epilepsy and injuries to the nervous system.

Neurological and mental health disorders will affect four in every five people in their lifetimes, and present a greater overall health burden than cancer and cardiovascular disease combined. For example, 28 million people in the UK are living with chronic pain and 1.3 million people with traumatic brain injury.

Neuro-technology – where technology is used to control the nervous system - has the potential to deliver new treatments for these disorders, in much the same way that heart pacemakers, cochlear implants and spinal implants have transformed medicine in recent decades.

̽��ֱ��technology can be in the form of electronic brain implants that reset abnormal brain activity or help deliver targeted drugs more effectively, brain-computer interfaces that control prosthetic limbs, or technologies that train the patient’s own cells to fight disease. ARIA’s Scalable Neural Interfaces opportunity space is exploring ways to make the technology more precise, less invasive, and applicable to a broader range of diseases.

Currently, an implant can only interact with large groups of neurons, the cells that transmit information around the brain. Building devices that interact with single neurons will mean a more accurate treatment. Neuro-technologies also have the potential to treat autoimmune disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and type-1 diabetes.

̽��ֱ��science of building technology small enough, precise enough and cheap enough to make a global impact requires an environment where the best minds from across the UK can collaborate, dream up radical, risky ideas and test them without fear of failure.

Professor George Malliaras from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering is one of the project leaders. “Miniaturised devices have the potential to change the lives of millions of people currently suffering from neurological conditions and diseases where drugs have no effect,” he said. “But we are working at the very edge of what is possible in medicine, and it is hard to find the support and funding to try radical, new things. That is why the partnership with ARIA is so exhilarating, because it is giving brilliant people the tools to turn their original ideas into commercially viable devices that are cheap enough to have a global impact.”

Cambridge’s partnership with ARIA will create a home for original thinkers who are struggling to find the funding, space and mentoring needed to stress-test their radical ideas. ̽��ֱ��three-year partnership is made up of two programmes:

̽��ֱ��Fellowship Programme (up to 18 fellowships)

Blue Sky Fellows – a UK-wide offer - we will search the UK for people from any background, with a radical idea in this field and the plan and personal skills to develop it. ̽��ֱ��best people will be offered a fellowship with the funding to test their ideas in Cambridge rapidly. These Blue Sky Fellows will receive mentorship from our best medical, scientific and business experts and potentially be offered accommodation at a Cambridge college. We will be looking for a specific type of person to be a Blue Sky Fellow. They must be the kind of character who thinks at the very edge of the possible, who doesn’t fear failure, and whose ideas have the potential to change billions of lives, yet would struggle to find funding from existing sources. Not people who think outside the box, more people who don’t see a box at all.

Activator Fellows - a UK-wide offer - those who have already proved that their idea can work, yet need support to turn it into a business, will be invited to become Activator Fellows. They will be offered training in entrepreneurial skills including grant writing, IP management and clinical validation, so their innovation can be ready for investment.

̽��ֱ��Ecosystem Programme

̽��ֱ��Ecosystem Programme is about creating a vibrant, UK-wide neurotechnology community where leaders from business, science, engineering, academia and the NHS can meet, spark ideas and form collaborations. This will involve quarterly events in Cambridge, road trip events across the UK and access to the thriving online Cambridge network, Connect: Health Tech.

“This unique partnership is all about turning radical ideas into practical, low-cost solutions that change lives,” said Kristin-Anne Rutter, Executive Director of Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Health Partners. “Cambridge is fielding its best team to make this work and using its networks to bring in the best people from all over the UK. From brilliant scientists to world-leading institutes, hospitals and business experts, everyone in this collaboration is committed to the ARIA partnership because, by working together, we all see an unprecedented opportunity to make a real difference in the world.”

“Physical and mental illnesses and diseases that affect the brain such as dementia are some of the biggest challenges we face both as individuals and as a society,” said Dr Ben Underwood, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. “This funding will bring together different experts doing things at the very limits of science and developing new technology to improve healthcare. We hope this new partnership with the NHS will lead to better care and treatment for people experiencing health conditions.”

Cambridge partners in the project include the Departments of Engineering and Psychiatry, Cambridge Neuroscience, the Milner Therapeutics Institute, the Maxwell Centre, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Health Partners (CUHP), Cambridge Network, the Babraham Research Campus, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, and Vellos.

A team from across the Cambridge life sciences, technology and business worlds has announced a multi-million-pound, three-year collaboration with the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), the UK government’s new research funding agency.

Science Photo Library via Getty Images

Illustration of human brain

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Lab-grown ‘mini-guts’ could change how we treat Crohn’s disease

cjb250 — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 09:31:24 +0000

Cambridge scientists have grown ‘mini-guts’ in the lab to help understand Crohn’s disease, showing that ‘switches’ that modify DNA in gut cells play an important role in the disease and how it presents in patients.

Cambridge partners with AstraZeneca and Medical Research Council on new world-class functional genomics laboratory

skbf2 — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 10:30:22 +0000

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge today announced a partnership with AstraZeneca and the Medical Research Council (MRC) to establish a new state-of-the-art functional genomics laboratory at the Milner Therapeutics Institute (MTI). ̽��ֱ��laboratory will become part of the UK’s Human Functional Genomics Initiative, contributing to the UK’s ambition of having the most advanced genomic healthcare system in the world.

Functional genomics investigates the effects and impacts of genetic changes in our DNA, and particularly how these contribute to disease. CRISPR makes it possible to test specific DNA alterations in a controlled way to investigate the effects and impacts of genetic changes in our DNA, revealing their effects on biological processes that cause disease. Finding these disease drivers is a key first step in the process of identifying potentially life-changing medicines for patients.

̽��ֱ��new facility, which will be located within the MTI on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, will provide researchers from across the UK with access to large-scale biological and technological tools and house an advanced automated arrayed-CRISPR screening platform. It is hoped that through the use of tools, such as CRISPR gene editing to provide insights into the relationship between genes and disease, scientists will discover new opportunities to develop therapies for chronic diseases including cardiovascular, respiratory and metabolic disease.

Professor Tony Kouzarides, Director of the Milner Therapeutics Institute, said: “ ̽��ֱ��best science is founded on collaboration, and I am delighted that the Milner Therapeutics Institute is partnering with the MRC and AstraZeneca to launch this unique functional genomics laboratory. This will enable sharing of expertise and resources to deliver new diagnostics and treatments for people with chronic diseases.”

Professor Andy Neely, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “This new collaboration with AstraZeneca and MRC is a fantastic example of industry and academia working together to drive forward science that will have a real impact on people’s health in the UK and around the world.”

Dr Jonathan Pearce, Director of Strategy and Planning, MRC, said: “We are working across UK Research and Innovation to improve health, ageing and wellbeing. Our investment in this new laboratory builds on the UK’s global leadership in genomics. Our support will enable the laboratory’s launch and provide access for researchers from across the UK. Through this investment, and the wider Human Functional Genomics Initiative, we will enhance the national ecosystem needed to improve our understanding of how genetic variance impacts health and disease.”

Sharon Barr, Executive Vice President, BioPharmaceuticals R&D, AstraZeneca, said: “Collaboration is crucial to achieving our ambition of transforming healthcare and delivering life-changing medicines for patients, and innovative partnership such as this one, allow us to share resources and expertise to advance science. This new laboratory created as part of the Human Functional Genomics Initiative, will be world-leading and will play a central role in shaping future functional genomics work across the UK and beyond.”

̽��ֱ��lab, which is expected to become operational in 2024, will provide a centre of excellence and national resource that combines the strengths and expertise of academia and industry. Its creation is part of a new partnership formed between MTI, AstraZeneca and MRC, and builds upon expertise gained through an existing collaboration between MTI, AstraZeneca and Cancer Research Horizons, known as the AstraZeneca-Cancer Research Horizons Functional Genomics Centre (FGC) that has been enabling advances in oncology research since 2018. ̽��ֱ��FGC is currently housed in the MTI and will be relocating next year.

MTI, AstraZeneca and the MRC’s Human Functional Genomics Initiative will share facilities, resources and knowledge working closely together to facilitate faster progress and innovations.

̽��ֱ��facility, based at the Milner Therapeutics Institute, will support the discovery of new medicines and diagnostics for chronic diseases by applying advanced biological and technological tools, including CRISPR gene editing.

A fantastic example of industry and academia working together to drive forward science that will have a real impact on people’s health in the UK and around the world.

Andy Neely

Milner Therapeutics Institute

Scientist looking down microscope

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge launches roadmap to support future growth of life sciences cluster

cjb250 — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 09:49:05 +0000

̽��ֱ��roadmap sets out a clear plan to create a bridge between two of Cambridge’s historical strengths — biomedical research and cutting-edge technology — and bring these specialisms together to develop new treatments and health tech with real world applications. ̽��ֱ��solutions in the roadmap are scalable beyond Cambridge and also applicable to other disciplines and sectors.

Professor Andy Neely, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Cambridge has a deep and rich history of discovery and collaboration, and its interdisciplinary environment is the perfect testbed for new models of innovation in the life sciences. Our roadmap sets out a plan to do just that and will ensure that Cambridge remains a global leader in health technology into the next generation.

“This will require us to pioneer new ways of working and creating connections between different institutions across disciplines, be they academic or private enterprise. Such a model has been proven to work at a small scale – our proposal in the roadmap is to scale this up and apply it across the cluster and beyond.”

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� sits at the heart of the so-called ‘Cambridge cluster’, in which more than 5,300 knowledge-intensive firms employ more than 67,000 people and generate £18 billion in turnover. Cambridge has the highest number of patent applications per 100,000 residents in the UK.

̽��ֱ��mission of the ̽��ֱ�� is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. This includes cultivating and delivering excellent research and world-leading innovation and training of the next generation of highly skilled researchers and entrepreneurs, thereby underpinning the UK's economic growth and competitiveness.

Professor Tony Kouzarides, Director of the Milner Therapeutics Institute at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��pandemic has clearly shown the importance of rapid innovation in healthcare. We are determined to harness the power of innovation, creativity and collaboration in Cambridge, and apply this towards solving some of the biggest medical challenges facing the country, and the world.”

̽��ֱ��Connect: Health Tech roadmap is a result of consultation with major stakeholders and a series of road-mapping workshops with the Cambridge community. It aims to shape the future success of the Cambridge cluster in health tech through a supportive and dynamic ecosystem that aligns with the needs of the community.

̽��ֱ��roadmap includes ambitious steps to build strong foundations for the Cambridge cluster for the next 20 years and will support the region's economic recovery post-pandemic and bring cutting-edge research, businesses and innovators together to be better prepared and connected for the future. Connect: Health Tech will also increase access to the Cambridge ecosystem extending reach and helping to level up growth and investment across the East of England and the Oxford-Cambridge Arc.

One of the major recommendations in the report is to create and foster connectivity at the interface between medicine and technology and across sectors. This recommendation has been piloted by expanding the Cambridge cluster from a physical community to a digital one.

̽��ֱ��COVID19 pandemic has required the creation of an innovative model of access and navigation to Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��digital platform simplifies navigation of the Cambridge research community and enables new companies based all over the world to access expertise and knowledge across the ̽��ֱ�� with the aim of increasing inward investment in the life sciences. It also pilots an approach to navigation and connectivity that can be scaled up across the Arc and the UK. This new way of working will speed up the development of new healthcare innovations and technologies that the NHS will use in years to come.

Connect: Health Tech is a Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� initiative funded by Research England. Connect: Health Tech UEZ has been created to build a highly effective interdisciplinary bridge between two Cambridge research hubs and beyond: the West science and technology hub anchored at the Maxwell Centre and South biomedical hub anchored at the Milner Therapeutics Institute. ̽��ֱ��bridge will bring together and integrate a community from across the ̽��ֱ��, research institutes, NHS, industry, investors, local and national Government, with a focus on medtech, digital health and therapeutics, to create opportunities that will transform ideas at the interface between medicine and technology into reality.

Read Creating a ̽��ֱ�� Enterprise Zone for Cambridge across the life and physical sciences

Connect: Health Tech, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Enterprise Zone, has today launched a roadmap, ‘Creating a ̽��ֱ�� Enterprise Zone for Cambridge across the life and physical sciences’, that examines the challenges faced in futureproofing and sustaining the growth of the life sciences cluster to maintain Cambridge as a global centre of excellence for health tech.

Cambridge has a deep and rich history of discovery and collaboration, and its interdisciplinary environment is the perfect testbed for new models of innovation in the life sciences

Andy Neely

AstraZeneca

Cambridge Biomedical Campus

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Scientists identify 160 new drugs that could be repurposed against COVID-19

cjb250 — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 18:00:28 +0000

In a study published today in Science Advances, a team led by researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Milner Therapeutics Institute and Gurdon Institute used a combination of computational biology and machine learning to create a comprehensive map of proteins that are involved in SARS-CoV-2 infection – from proteins that help the virus break into the host cell to those generated as a consequence of infection. By examining this network using artificial intelligence (AI) approaches, they were able to identify key proteins involved in infection as well as biological pathways that might be targeted by drugs.

To date, the majority of small molecule and antibody approaches for treating COVID-19 are drugs that are either currently the subject of clinical trials or have already been through clinical trials and been approved. Much of the focus has been on several key virus or host targets, or on pathways – such as inflammation – where a drug treatment could be used as an intervention.

̽��ֱ��team used computer modelling to carry out a ‘virtual screen’ of almost 2,000 approved drugs and identified 200 approved drugs that could be effective against COVID-19. Forty of these drugs have already entered clinical trials, which the researchers argue supports the approach they have taken.

When the researchers tested a subset of those drugs implicated in viral replication, they found that two in particular – an antimalarial drug and a type of medicine used to treat rheumatoid arthritis – were able to inhibit the virus, providing initial validation of their data-driven approach.

Professor Tony Kouzarides, Director of the Milner Therapeutics Institute, who led the study, said: “By looking across the board at the thousands of proteins that play some role in SARS-CoV-2 infection – whether actively or as a consequence of infections – we’ve been able to create a network uncovering the relationship between these proteins.

“We then used the latest machine learning and computer modelling techniques to identify 200 approved drugs that might help us treat COVID-19. Of these, 160 had not been linked to this infection before. This could give us many more weapons in our armoury to fight back against the virus.”

Using artificial neural network analysis, the team classified the drugs depending on the overarching role of their targets in SARS-CoV-2 infection: those that targeted viral replication and those that targeted the immune response. They then took a subset of those involved in viral replication and tested them using cell lines derived from humans and from non-human primates.

Of particular note were two drugs, sulfasalazine (used to treat conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease) and proguanil (an antimalarial drug), which the team showed reduced SARS-CoV-2 viral replication in cells, raising the possibility of their potential use to prevent infection or to treat COVID-19.

Dr Namshik Han, Head of Computational Research and AI at the Milner Therapeutics Institute, added: “Our study has provided us with unexpected information about the mechanisms underlying COVID-19 and has provided us with some promising drugs that might be repurposed for either treating or preventing infection. While we took a data-driven approach – essentially allowing artificially intelligent algorithms to interrogate datasets – we then validated our findings in the laboratory, confirming the power of our approach.

“We hope this resource of potential drugs will accelerate the development of new drugs against COVID-19. We believe our approach will be useful for responding rapidly to new variants of SARS-CoV2 and other new pathogens that could drive future pandemics.”

̽��ֱ��research was funded by LifeArc, the LOEWE Center DRUID, the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme, Wellcome and Cancer Research UK.

Reference
Han, N, Hwang, W, Tzelepis, K, & Schmerer, P, et al. Identification of SARS-CoV-2 induced pathways reveal drug repurposing strategies. Sci Adv; 30 June 2021

Cambridge scientists have identified 200 approved drugs predicted to work against COVID-19 – of which only 40 are currently being tested in COVID-19 clinical trials.

We hope this resource of potential drugs will accelerate the development of new drugs against COVID-19. We believe our approach will be useful for responding rapidly to new variants of SARS-CoV2 and other new pathogens that could drive future pandemics

Namshik Han

geralt

Graphical representation of COVID-19 and networks

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Licence type:

Public Domain

Joining the dots

skbf2 — Wed, 26 May 2021 12:03:01 +0000

A new online community of researchers, businesses and healthcare providers is bringing the future of medicine one step closer.

Cambridge is one of the UK’s leading centres of life sciences and innovation. Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� and the world-leading research institutes on our doorstep have contributed to major breakthroughs in healthcare. Monoclonal antibodies, IVF and gene sequencing technologies are just some of the life-changing innovations to have emerged from the Cambridge Cluster.

̽��ֱ��need to connect

Cambridge is also a research powerhouse in maths, physics, computer science and engineering. ̽��ֱ��future of healthcare - earlier detection, better diagnostics, more-personalised medicine - lies where these disciplines meet. Maths and computer science, for example, are driving advances in AI which will help us to better understand biological processes (and hence where to target drugs), interrogate the vast genomic datasets that underpin personalised medicine and improve how clinical trials are run. Inventing new diagnostics and medical devices, using new materials and new processes such as additive manufacturing, needs both medical and engineering know-how.

There are plenty of examples of powerful interdisciplinary collaborations in the ̽��ֱ��, such as the new Cambridge Centre for AI in Medicine in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. But finding out who does what and connecting the right people across a complex ecosystem is not always easy. An already difficult task is made harder by the fact that researchers in different disciplines, executives in large companies, entrepreneurs and clinicians often talk a very different language and have different expectations of collaborative activities. Once connections have been made, therefore, it can be a challenge to convert them into projects which go on to have a ‘real-world’ impact.

A clear vision

Connect: Health Tech, a Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Enterprise Zone was set up in 2019 with funding from Research England expressly to bridge these interdisciplinary and inter-organisational gaps through a range of activities. A roadmapping exercise was carried out, using innovation management techniques developed at the ̽��ֱ��’s Institute for Manufacturing. Key stakeholders were brought together to identify the top five barriers to collaboration and the best ways to overcome them. ̽��ֱ��report, Creating a ̽��ֱ�� Enterprise Zone for Cambridge across the life and physical sciences, will be published in June 2021.

Building a community

̽��ֱ��roadmap identified a clear need: a digital way of connecting and collaborating with people across the Cambridge ecosystem. A year later, we are delighted to be launching, a new, easy-to-navigate online community where the physical and life sciences can meet, along with entrepreneurs, large corporates, venture capitalists, science parks, National Health Service and member organisations. While focused on Cambridge initially, in time we hope that it will help community members forge connections further afield and expand the geographical boundaries of the ecosystem to create the right environment for ideas, start-ups, innovation and co-creation to thrive.

̽��ֱ��idea of Connect: Health Tech is to ‘join the dots’, to help researchers from different disciplines to find each other and other resources they might need, whether that is mentorship, skills, equipment, funding or physical space. For businesses, it’s about all that as well as being a welcoming, easy-to-navigate way into the complexity of the ̽��ֱ�� and the wider Cambridge cluster.

Getting successful collaborations off the ground often relies on the efforts of a relatively small group of people who have the knowledge and expertise to make connections – and broker relationships - across projects, disciplines and sectors. Connect: Health Tech brings these ‘super-connectors’ together in one place, creating a hugely powerful resource that, we hope, will both bring people together and provide the support they need to take collaborations forward.

How it works

Users will be able to find new contacts and networks and the community can post events, funding opportunities and jobs of interest. Special interest groups will encourage businesses and academics to discuss areas of common interest, with the topics chosen to catalyse inter-disciplinary interactions across the physical and life sciences. In time, the intention is that businesses will use these groups to share the challenges they face so the community can help solve real world problems

If Connect: Health Tech is successful it will benefit everyone – business, academia and patients. We want to see it leading to stronger and deeper interaction between physicists, material scientists, chemists, engineers, biotechnologists, biologists and clinicians across academia and industry leading to more clinically beneficial projects. And we hope it will strengthen the already rich pipeline of healthcare spin-outs, start-ups and SMEs that emerge and flourish in the Cambridge Cluster.

Please join us

With this blog comes an open invitation for businesses and individuals to join the online community and to get involved. ̽��ֱ��link is here. We will ask you a few short questions about why you want to join, what expertise you bring and what your expectations of it are. ̽��ֱ��platform is designed to enable informal connections and provide an easy way into Cambridge through individuals. It’s not a searchable website, it’s a live discussion forum with access to real people. I look forward to seeing and connecting with you there!

Dr Kathryn Chapman
Deputy Director of the Milner Therapeutics Institute
and ̽��ֱ�� Relationship Manager for the Cambridge-AstraZeneca Partnership

May 2021

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