PACTT is pleased to announce the signature of a license agreement between CHUV and JeuPRO Sàrl for a card game focused on microbes: KROBS.

Easy to learn, mischievous, and beautifully illustrated, KROBS is an educative and entertaining card game about microbes created by Prof. Gilbert Greub, Director of the Institute of Microbiology of the University of Lausanne.

Professor Greub and his team have been working since January 2004 on new emerging pathogens. Their objective is to discover them before they cause an epidemic and thus ideally reduce the risk of associated diseases. The current knowledge of the general population on these emerging pathogens is weak. Therefore, Professor Greub had the idea of developing a game to raise public awareness about microbes and to partially cover the current lack of knowledge of the population.

KROBS is a great tool to get better at identifying germs, learn how to better protect yourself and how to deal with the risks while having fun!

To learn more about the game or to purchase it, please visit the KROBS website.

InnoPACTT is celebrating its 5th anniversary. Since the launch in 2013, 16 laureates of UNIL and CHUV have benefited from an InnoTREK grant. This represents an investment of 1.6 million Swiss francs.

In order to promote innovation within UNIL and CHUV and encourage the creation of start-up companies in the Canton of Vaud, InnoTREK supports researchers who have the ambition to venture into the business world. Part of the InnoPACTT funds managed by PACTT, the InnoTREK grant is financially supported by UNIL, CHUV and the FIT (Fondation pour l’Innovation Technologique). Twice a year, successful candidates are selected to receive a grant of CHF 100’000 to develop their innovation project. PACTT supports future entrepreneurs during the application process and during the year of grant. Besides advice on legal and intellectual property aspects, the PACTT team discusses and challenges their plans and introduces them to the innovation ecosystem and relevant networks.

To date, five InnoTREK laureates have founded their start-up company, and a few more are in the pipeline. The InnoTREK grant underpins our vision that innovation and entrepreneurship are important pillars of local economic development and, simultaneously, interesting alternative career paths.

Interview of Stefan Kohler, PACTT Director, by Startupticker

Apply now to pitch your project at BioInnovation Day 2018

PACTT is co-organising the 8th edition of BioInnovation Day on November 15, 2018 at Campus Biotech. This dynamic event provides academic researchers, scientist-entrepreneurs and start-up companies the chance to pitch their innovative life science projects to an audience of up to 200 peers, industry representatives, investors, and innovation supporting bodies.

Discover the programme
The core of the programme will be four sessions of elevator pitches featuring projects selected from both academic research and start-up companies. Sessions will also include investors and industry representatives presenting how they source new projects and what qualities attract venture capital investment. To conclude the event, three prizes ranging from 1’000 CHF to 10’000 CHF will be awarded to the most innovative projects.

Registration
Registration is now open, and we invite applications from academic researchers, scientist-entrepreneurs and start-up companies to present their innovative projects in all areas of life science. Projects must be submitted through the event web site and will be selected by the BioInnovation Day committee. Each presenter will have 5 minutes to pitch their project as well as the opportunity for follow-up one-on-one discussions to further showcase their projects during networking sessions throughout the day.

For more information and to submit a project:
http://www.bioinnovation.ch

Looking forward to welcoming you at Campus Biotech,
PACTT and the BioInnovation Day Organising Committee

To read the news, please click here.

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Autumn CALL 2018 You are a UNIL-CHUV scientist and would like to create a start-up and need a financial support to start

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Le Professeur Piergiorgio Tozzi, médecin adjoint au Service de chirurgie cardiaque du CHUV et professeur associé à la Faculté de biologie et de médecine de l’UNIL, est en train de développer un cœur artificiel tout à fait étonnant, le Rolling Heart. Grâce au soutien du PACTT, un brevet a été déposé afin de protéger cette invention.

Découvrez l’interview du Prof. Tozzi dans l’émission CQFD de la RTS : https://pages.rts.ch/la-1ere/programmes/cqfd/16-07-2018#9687800

In response to the 2018 spring call InnoTREK, Mrs. Semira Gonseth Nusslé and Mr. Florentin Coppey submitted two innovative projects. They were both chosen to benefit from the InnoTREK grant of CHF 100’000.-. These funds will be a great help to continue developing their project and subsequently create their own start-up.

The project of Semira Gonseth Nusslé, named “Genknowme”, is based on the identification of epigenetic markers linked to alcohol and tobacco consumption and their interaction with the genome. Mrs. Gonseth proposes to develop a test based on these markers to assess the real biological impacts of tobacco or alcohol consumption that potential customer can use as informative and motivational tools. The test will require a drop of blood at the fingertip, which is less invasive than the other proposed medical procedures. The results of the test will raise the customer’s awareness and increase their motivation to control or stop their consumption of tobacco or alcohol.

Mrs. Gonseth will be hosted in Prof. Bochud’s laboratory in the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the CHUV.

Florentin Coppey’s project aims to refine a prototype capable of instantly identifying and quantifying narcotics in the field without the need for heavy laboratory equipment. This small device has the advantages of being able to accurately identify all common narcotics and analyze them in less than one second without destruction in a cost effective way. It also allows profiling various drug takings. This project responds to a market need with, among other things, the emergence of legal cannabis and the need to differentiate it from illegal cannabis.

Mr. Coppey will be hosted at the School of Criminal Sciences (ESC), in the laboratory of the drugs expert group under the supervision of Prof. Pierre Esseiva. The ESC is part of the Faculty of Law of the University of Lausanne.

For additional information on Florentin Coppey, please check the following news published by UNIL: https://news.unil.ch/display/1530699020232

The InnoTREK grant, managed by PACTT with the financial support of FIT (Fondation pour l’Innovation Technologique) as part of the InnoPACTT fund, supports selected researchers of UNIL and CHUV who have the ambition to venture into the business world with their innovative projects. These successful projects are chosen in a competitive process from applications received during the two calls per year. Since the launch in 2013, 16 laureates of UNIL and CHUV have benefited from the InnoTREK grant.

Useful links:

InnoTREK

InnoPACTT

FIT

During her Ph.D. at UNIL, biologist Olga Dubey discovered molecules with fungicidal properties. Thanks to the support of UNIL and PACTT, she could benefit from the InnoTREK grant (CHF 100’000.-) and was then able to found her own spin-off, AgroSustain. The goal of AgroSustain is to develop organic treatments against broad range of fungal pathogens affecting plants, for which there is currently no effective organic treatment. Since she benefited from the InnoTREK grant, Olga Dubey successfully won several additional prices.

PACTT wishes full success to Olga and her new spin-off!

The InnoTREK grant, managed by PACTT with the financial support of FIT (Fondation pour l’Innovation Technologique) as part of the InnoPACTT fund, supports selected researchers of UNIL and CHUV who have the ambition to venture into the business world with their innovative projects. These successful projects are chosen in a competitive process from applications received during the two calls per year. Since the launch in 2013, 14 laureates of UNIL and CHUV have benefited from the InnoTREK grant.

Useful links :

InnoTREK

InnoPACTT

FIT

AgroSustain

Allez savoir

For the 5th time, Venturelab, together with the ZHAW (Zurich University of Applied Sciences), offers 10 “Scientrepreneurs” the chance to discover the market potential of their applied research in India.

The AIT program aims to support scientists in transforming their high-level applied research into market application and discovering their entrepreneurial potential. By connecting scientists from top institutions in Switzerland and India, the program promotes an international network and enables access to one of the most promising markets and intellectual capitals in applied research.

This discovery program takes place in two phases, the first one at the beginning of December 2018 in Bangalore, India, and the second phase in April 2019 in Switzerland.

The program is entirely free, but participation to both weeks is required.

Registration deadline: July 12th, 2018

For more information:  http://www.venturelab.ch/ait

Flyer AIT India

Spring CALL 2018 You are a UNIL-CHUV scientist and would like to create a start-up and need a financial support to start

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