We are thrilled to officially announce the seven winners of the Cancer Tech Accelerator Phase II Grants, provided in partnership with Cancer Research UK, Roche UK and the Medical Research Council. These teams have been selected from a very competitive field of 50 teams that participated in Phase I!  

The Cancer Tech Accelerator aims to foster entrepreneurship and support researchers to rapidly translate cutting-edge technology with a view to it reaching patients sooner. The academic organisation of each team will receive £70,000 to enable the researchers to progress and enhance their research over the next six months. They will also receive extensive guidance and support from the Capital Enterprise network, Roche UK, and Cancer Research UK’s Entrepreneurial Programmes Initiative, which aims to promote a culture of entrepreneurship amongst academics in the UK.

A huge congratulations to; 

  • Manoj Murali, Zengchu Tan (University of Cambridge) from OrganA
  • David Mahon, Dr Bjoern Seitz, Dr Rick Gray, Dr Frank Thomson (University of Glasgow) from Lomond Instruments 
  • Sylvain Ladame, Jason Chang, Yunus Kutlu (Imperial College London) from MelaKnowMiR 
  • Elise Jenkins, Ben Woodington (University of Cambridge) from Opto Biosystems
  • Adam Amara, Remy Boutonnet (Newcastle University) from Turing Biosystems
  • Stephen Morrell (King’s College London) from Elaitra 
  • Ryan Mathew, Heiko Wurdak (University of Leeds) from Assemblify

The above seven teams participated in an extremely competitive pitching competition, the selection was aided by our Scientific Advisory Panel which included:

  • Jason Mellad (StartCodon)
  • Pahini Pandya (Pankeia)
  • Nirmesh Patel (Entrepreneur in Residence, Capital Enterprise) 
  • Phillip Masterson (Cancer Research UK)
  • John Pritchard (MedTech consultant) and 
  • Matthew Farren (Cancer Research UK)

as well as representatives from Roche UK. A special thank you to these members who provided their time, insights, and expertise. 

In addition to the seven grant winners, we have selected five Rising Stars who showed exceptional potential and will receive our continued support and mentorship as part of Phase II;

  • Max Zhu, Mohammed Alawami, Prof Ulrich Keyser, Kaikai Chen (University of Cambridge) from Cambridge Nucleomics
  • Edward Law, Dr Helen Blair (Newcastle University) from HiDRA Technologies
  • Anaid Benitez (Francis Crick Institute)  
  • Anjui Wu, Prof Gert Attard (University College London) from CANSOR Ltd
  • Jonathan Kwok, Senthil Chinnakannan, Lian Ni Lee (University of Oxford) from Infinitopes

 

At the end of the six months, the teams will be given the opportunity to pitch at the Cancer Tech Accelerator demo day to a selection of investors, industry, key opinion leaders, and other partners. We are excited to see all the progress they make!

If you’d like to learn more please visit www.cancertechaccelerator.co.uk

Applications for the next cohort open Spring 2022