Swansea University Medical School has secured a prestigious funding boost to accelerate the transition from discovery research to development projects in the field of nanomedicine.
Building on successful research developed by experts in the University’s Centre for NanoHealth, the 2020 MRC Confidence in Concept (CiC) award aims to accelerate discoveries towards translation and ultimately patient benefit.
MRC CiC co-Investigator Prof Deya Gonzalez said: “The MRC CiC recognises Swansea’s strengths in nanomedicine, which have been developed effectively in the Centre for NanoHealth, and shows the value of bringing together researchers from biomedicine, chemistry, physics and engineering to develop new and much needed healthcare advances by exploiting nanotechnology for patient benefit.”
CiC funding will support four independent projects over the next two years. The projects will focus on nanomedicine translational research, backing projects that have the greatest potential for near-term impact and are likely to attract follow-on investments.
Projects will build from well-established research to prove the viability of an approach, for example establishing a novel nano-therapeutic. Funding will allow researchers to complete the essential experiments needed to demonstrate proof of concept, and allowing research to more effectively transition to larger translational funding schemes and develop collaborations with industrial partners.
The CiC fund is structured to foster industry collaboration and commercial expertise through a specialist board of independent expert advisors, including academic and industrial leaders from the UK. The establishment of this nanomedicine translational pipeline highlights the success of nanomedicine research in Swansea in the areas of nanomedicines, nanodiagnostics, regenerative medicine and nanobiosafety.
MRC CiC Principle Investigator Professor Steve Conlan said: “This is an exciting time for nanomedicine. With the CiC award we will be able to build a stronger pipeline taking viable projects from early research through to translation.”
