February 19th 2010, Biocant Park, Cantanhede

Introduction

Two of the main purposes of the BioEngineering Systems Focus Area of the MIT-Portugal Program are associated with the promotion of: 1) technology transfer between Universities and Companies and 2) entrepreneurship.

Under that scope, the promoters of the BIO-Teams – Innovation Teams module, integrated in the Advanced course on Bioengineering Systems will organize on February 19th 2010 the 3rd IdeaSpring event at the Biocant Park in Cantanhede.

The aim of the IdeaSpring event is to make public several BioTechnologies with promising economic value developed in the main national research centers and companies, promoting the interaction between inventors, students, potential investors and other entities interested in the subject of Bioentrepreneurhip.

It is expected that, through a better mutual understanding of the relevant players in the field and the public presentation of BioTechnologies, new partnerships will be established that can contribute to create economic value.

The event, besides oral presentations of the Technologies selected, will have sessions with international entrepreneurs

Call for Proposals

The organizers have invited all researchers working in the field of Bioengineering to submit proposals by sending the 1 to 2 pages form filled to ideaspring@deb.uminho.pt until December 31st 2009. Based upon the information available, 5 technologies have been selected that will be used for the students’ projects. Those proposals comply with the following requirements: :

• Have emerged from interesting results already obtained in Lab

• Have promising commercial applications.

The Principal Investigators have been invited to present their technologies during the IdeaSpring event in a 10-minutes “Elevator Pitch” Presentation format.

IdeaSpring - Preliminary Program

Biocant – Cantanhede

The BioTeams Project

The Bio-Teams project was offered for the first time in 2007/2008 to the PhD students of the Bioengineering Systems focus area integrated in the MIT-Portugal program. The project focuses on BioTechnologies emerging from Universities and companies, with the objective of evaluating their market potential.

Starting from specific technologies, the joint effort of students and principal investigators is directed towards the identification of relevant market segments. In the original i-Teams project at MIT, the past experience allows to conclude that, in some cases, the Bio-Teams projects constitute the embryo of a new company, whereas in others they conclude that Universities or companies should rather license the technology to established companies. If the maturity of the technology is not sufficient to justify the creation of a start-up, the principal investigators receive feed-back from the teams which enables them to redirect their research, if commercialization remains the final goal.

The previous editions were very useful for both students and PIs as they had the opportunity to closely collaborate with several entities and personalities from industry, academia, funding and interface institutions that shared their experiences with the teams by participating in workshops as invited speakers and also by being part of the panel of experts that was created.

During the 2008/2009 Bio-Teams class, seven teams worked on projects that covered several fields in Bioengineering, from novel biomedical devices, and new diagnostic tools to commodity products with enhanced properties. The applications of the technologies were mainly in the food, medical and pharmaceutical industries.

During the 2008/2009 Bio-Teams class, seven teams worked on projects that covered several fields in Bioengineering, from novel biomedical devices, and new diagnostic tools to commodity products with enhanced properties. The applications of the technologies were mainly in the food, medical and pharmaceutical industries.

Technologies selected for the BioTeams Projects 2009:

• Functional identification of new neurons and oligodendrocytes differentiating from neural stem cells – PI: João O. Malva, CNC, Univ. Coimbra; BioTeam: Francisca Eiriz, João Arrais and Ricardo Torcato

• Diagnostic gene probe for the patulin mycotoxin in food and drink – PI: Russel Paterson – IBB, Univ. Minho; BioTeam: Filipa Castro, Roberto Gallardo and Swarna Pandian

• Optical Biochips – PI: João Pedro Conde, INESC; BioTeam: André Fialho, Fabiana Fernandes and Miguel Queirós

• Phage-Based Magnetoelastic Wireless Biosensor for the Detection of Salmonella in Food Stuff – PI: Joana Azeredo – IBB, Univ. Minho; BioTeam: Federico Cismondi; Filipe Castro and Sara Matias

• Real-time pathogens bio-sensing based on Ion Jelly® technology – PI: Nuno Lourenço, IBB, IST; BioTeam: Jorge Carvalho, Maria Pereira and Sezin Aday

• Detoxification of ochratoxin A containing commodities (Detox-Ochra) – PI: Luís Abrunhosa, IBB, Univ. Minho; BioTeam: Geisa Lopes and Silvia Mihalia

• Development of anti-microbial coatings for biomedical devices – PI: Sandra Carvalho, Dep. Física, Univ. Minho; BioTeam: António Vicente, Marco Mercier and Paulo Melo

During the 2007/2008 Bio-Teams class, six teams worked on ProMet, PhIND, DNAMimics, Biolat, Iron Capture, and Safe Surface projects.

More details on last year’s edition can be found at:

• http://www.mitportugal.org/latest/prof-joao-malvas-bio-team-wins-biocant-ventures-prize.html

• http://www.mitportugal.org/event-news/mit-portugal-students-compete-for-innovation-prizes-give-presentations-at-ciencia-2008.html

• http://www.mitportugal.org/latest/researchers-students-develop-technology-to-detect-protein-breakdown-win-prizes-+audio.html

• http://www.mitportugal.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=106&Itemid=1

During the Bio-Teams class, the students spend a semester collaborating with researchers from the most important Portuguese research labs. Each team works with a selected technology, and focus on building a go-to-market strategy for breakthroughs emerging from these pre-eminent labs. The teams will be guided by the labs' Principal Investigators.

The final outputs will consist on a written report summarizing the main results and conclusions and a presentation to be made in the presence of invited personalities.

In summary, the semester will consist on formal classes, some of them with invited speakers, on visits to selected companies or institutions and on team meetings to be devoted to the development of the project assigned to each team.

Additionally, during the semester, the organization of several workshops opened to the scientific and industrial community is foreseen:

The main objectives of the bio-teams project are:

• Educate PhD students on market research and technology based entrepreneurship

• Promote market-oriented projects in Bioengineering

• Create a Bio-teams culture in Portugal

• Promote the conversion of BioTechnologies developed in Portugal into Economic Value  

Confidentitality

IdeaSpring

The proposals submitted to the Idea Spring will be treated as confidential and will be accessed only by the reviewers. The organizers thereby assure non-disclosure of the information contained in the pre-proposal form.

However, the information disclosed during the Idea Spring event is the PI’s entire responsibility.

Bio-Teams

For the projects selected for the Bio-Teams class, the following conditions apply:

• Confidentiality: The initial information transmitted to the students is the one contained in the pre-proposal form, after authorization by the PI. That information will be treated as confidential during the entire educational project unless otherwise instructed by the PI. Additionally, the students should be clearly informed which part of any additional information transmitted by the PI is confidential.

• The students will be instructed on how to deal with such confidential information, including the turning in of assignments for the Bio-Teams.

• No public disclosure: Faculty or team-mate intellectual property discussions in a classroom or other academic setting (with no third parties present) may not constitute “public disclosure.” However, presentations where the public is invited (if applicable) or present must not include any confidential information.

Organization

Isabel Rocha and Lígia Rodrigues (UMinho), Miguel Prazeres and Frederico Ferreira (IST/UTL), Joao Nuno Moreira  (UCoimbra), Fernanda Lussá (UNL).