Antibiotic research project selected for new innovation programme

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Liverpool researchers have been selected to take part in a new Innovation to Commercialisation of University Research (ICURe) scheme to validate the commercial potential of novel antibiotics to tackle bacterial biofilm infections.

The project is one of just six research projects selected to participate in the inaugural Biofilms ICURe Sprint cohort, delivered by SETsquared and funded by the National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC).

Bacterial biofilms account for 80% of chronic and recurrent microbial infections in humans. Liverpool’s ‘BioPepTex’ team, based at Liverpool’s Centre of Excellence in Infectious Diseases Research (CEIDR) and led by Dr Ishwar Singh and Dr Anish Parmar, have discovered and developed novel antibiotics to tackle multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial biofilm infections which have potential to improve and save lives globally.

Through the scheme, the team will have access to an ecosystem of businesses and investors from both NBIC and SETsquared to enable the teams to ‘get out of the lab’ and validate their commercially promising research.

Professor Rasmita Raval, Co-Director of NBIC, said: “Innovation is an important pillar of NBIC’s activities. We are excited about NBIC’s partnership with ICURe, which has allowed us to support entrepreneurial projects like this. Dr Singh and Dr Parmar’s project translates frontier knowledge to address important societal and industrial needs. It was highly rated in a very competitive field, and we look forward to seeing this opportunity achieving its full potential.”

Karen Brooks, Programme Director, SETsquared says: “This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for biofilm innovators to validate the market for their products or services, tap into leading sector knowledge, expert guidance, and an ecosystem of research institutes, investors, and businesses from the sector. Furthermore, they will have the opportunity to access up to £20k worth of funding to be used for market validation activities.

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