Lab News roundup: multimillion investments and an RF breakthrough
18 Oct 2024
The University of Warwick is to invest £700 million in its West Midlands campus as part of its Connect Programme – the largest single investment in campus facilities in its 60-year history.
The unprecedented investment will focus on STEM subjects as well as social sciences to expand interdisciplinary education and research opportunities and new courses in both areas. Phase one of the investment, the STEM Connect Programme will see spaces built for new state-of-the-art research and education programmes. These include teaching rooms and laboratories, to allow Warwick to build on innovation and research excellence and create more learning opportunities for undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Pic: Connect project image (University of Warwick)
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The Government has launched a new initiative to address an acute skills shortage faced by the medicines manufacturing industry in the UK.
Funded by the Office for Life Sciences, Resilience forms part of the UK Government’s Department for Science, Innovation & Technology, and managed through Innovate UK, Resilience is a £4.5 million, two-year programme.
At the University of Birmingham launch, minister of state for science, research and innovation, Lord Vallance, said: “With over £108 billion turnover, as a provider of over 300,000 jobs nationwide, and as a source of treatments helping tackle some of the most debilitating diseases, the life sciences sector is one of the UK’s true industrial champions.
H continued: “Our medicines manufacturers’ work is critical to the economic success, and health, of the nation. For them to keep being successful, it is imperative that we help them bridge the industry’s skills gaps. This new Centre of Excellence will be an important part of those efforts – bringing industry, universities and the NHS together with schools and colleges to ignite the next generation of life sciences talent.”
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Biotech firm Shift Bioscience, which employs generative AI models to understand how activation of different genes can reverse the aging process has raised the equivalent of £12.5 million in seed funding, led by BGF, with existing investors F-Prime Capital, Kindred Capital and Jonathan Milner.
The funding will aid development of its artificial intelligence cell simulation platform, for the identification of genes that can safely rejuvenate cells to combat the effects of age-related illnesses – research seen as key to designing more effective drugs for treatment.
“This investment is indicative of the strength of our approach and is one of the earliest funding rounds for a biotech start-up exclusively focused on the rapidly emerging field of cell simulation for target discovery. This additional funding will allow us to accelerate the development of our platform and bring cell rejuvenation therapeutics closer towards clinical trial,” said CEO Dr Daniel Ives.
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The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGT Catapult), Pharmaron Biologics (UK) and Complement Therapeutics have been awarded a £1.4 million Innovate UK Transforming Medicines Manufacturing (TMM) Programme grant to develop a process to improve gene therapy production.
Adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors are used in some approved gene therapies that target rare conditions. Now moves are underway to develop AAV-based gene therapies that aim to target higher-prevalence conditions.
The trio will collaborate on a two-year project to develop an intensified perfusion process for the production of AAV. Lead applicant Pharmaron Biologics (UK) Ltd will apply the process to its AAV platform, enabling collaborating gene therapy developers to benefit from improvements in yield, quality and lower manufacturing costs.
Complement Therapeutics will use the knowledge for development of its portfolio of treatments for complement-related diseases each with a high unmet clinical need.
CGT Catapult chief executive Matthew Durdy said: “There are currently no clinically approved AAV products manufactured using perfusion technologies… this project offers a valuable opportunity to unlock the benefits of this manufacturing process.
“This aims to help make gene therapies more affordable to healthcare systems and ensure that sufficient volumes of AAV can be produced to meet an increase in demand.”
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Keysight Technologies and the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) successfully demonstrated the world’s first commercial radio frequency (RF) power sensor operating at cryogenic temperatures as low as 3 kelvin, advancing quantum computing capabilities.
The two say this will enable precise RF power measurements in cryogenic environments, amounting to a key step in development of quantum technologies and other applications requiring extreme temperature conditions.
Radio Frequency (RF) and microwave power measurements can o support applications across space, defence, and communication. The precise measurements enable engineers to accurately characterise waveforms, components, circuits, and systems.
Quantum tech offers the opportunity for faster computing and sensing but quantum devices such as qubits require operation at cryogenic temperatures, leading to problems maintaining signal integrity and producing precise measurements.
Said Greg Patschke, Keysight Aerospace, Defence and Government Solutions Group general manager: “This marks a major milestone, and we are thrilled to have collaborated with the NPL on this groundbreaking research.”
The UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) supported the research through the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme.
