Faculty
Faculty
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BioInnovation Institute Faculty
As of January 2020, BioInnovation Institute has entered a collaboration with The Technical University of Denmark (DTU) to create a unique interdisciplinary environment focused on commercialization that can foster novel ideas and lead to new spin-outs.
From January 2020, the first university projects from DTU will join BII for a three-year period. The university-based projects will establish a team that will work in BII’s office and lab space alongside projects and start-ups in the BII programs.
BII will source the projects and besides fostering new companies, BII expects to see benefits from interdisciplinary collaborations and cross-fertilizations of methods and tools between the projects in all BII programs.
Each project will be granted DKK 6M per year starting in 2020 and BII is committed to supporting the projects through to the end of 2022. BII expects to accept 5-6 projects in BII Faculty in 2020.
Read more about the projects in BII’s Faculty below.
Projects
Microbial cell therapies for modulating the gut-brain axis
The gut-brain axis is established with important roles in several debilitating diseases, including depression, anxiety and Parkinson disease. However, limited therapeutic options are available to modulate the gut-brain axis. We are making microbial cell therapies producing the neuroactive compounds in situ of the gut to treat diseases of the central nervous system.
Microbial production of therapeutic alkaloids
Monoterpenoid indole alkaloids (MIAs) are plant-derived natural products with remarkable structural diversity and a myriad of applications as therapeutics, nutraceuticals, pest control agents, and materials precursors. The project focuses on three things; developing a robust microbial platform for production of any desired MIA, determining the target MIAs that an eventual company will commercialize, and constructing separate yeast hosts that will produce these molecules at high titers, rates and yields.
Locally Sustained Gene Therapy
Thomas Andresen’s project will use the team’s expertise in image-guided local injections, biomaterials and gene delivery, to create systems that can induce local cell transfection, and use the cells as therapeutic factories to reprogram local tissue microenvironments. Such reprogramming of local tissues has highly impactful treatment possibilities in cancer, autoimmune, and infectious disease.
Early diagnosis of pregnancy loss
Professor Henriette Svarre Nielsen aims to increase live birth rates by developing a comprehensive diagnostic test that can inform couples after a pregnancy loss.
Therapeutic drug monitoring
Professor Anja Boisen is developing a miniaturized tabletop device that can perform therapeutic drug monitoring on a single drop of blood in a matter of minutes. The research group will be working on a solution available at point of care without the need for specialized personnel and at a fraction of the currently available cost.