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BioInnovation Institute Faculty
BII Faculty Program supports entrepreneurial academic researchers in translating their science into innovative products and solutions. Faculty Program projects will join BII for a three-year period and establish a team that will work in a BII’s office and lab space alongside other Faculty projects and start-ups in other BII programs. BII Faculty projects will be supported by a tailored program to develop entrepreneurial and commercial competencies of the team and by dedicated BII anchors to help guide project progression. The three-year program should lead to establishing new spin-out companies.
Each Faculty Program project will be awarded up to DKK 6M (~ EUR 800K) grant funding per year for up to 3 years.
Read more about the projects in BII’s Faculty below.
Projects
Designed bacterial collaboromes for biocontrol of plant pathogens
Professor Karsten Kristiansen is designing consortia of bacteria – termed collaboromes – able to prevent or diminish attacks by pathogens causing major annual losses of crops. The project will establish a comprehensive catalog of genes, species, and collaboromes characterizing the microbiota in fields with high or low incidence of diseases due to fungal or bacterial pathogens.
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 diseases.
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.