2013 Press Releases
Inventors honoured at UCC
Pioneering new technologies in the area of bioscience and ICT were recognised recently at the Invention of the Year Awards, sponsored by Purdy Lucey, at gatewayUCC in Cork.
Presented by Minister for Research and Innovation Sean Sherlock T.D. on 10 June 2013, the award for the Invention of the Year (Bioscience) award was awarded to Dr. Catherine Stanton and her team for their discovery of a new probiotic bacterial strain that has cardio-protective properties and is proven to reduce cholesterol by 53% within 12 weeks of consumption. The “Healthy Heart” probiotic research is a result of collaboration between Teagasc, UCC Microbiology and the Centre for Research in Vascular Biology at UCC, and it is likely that there will be strong commercial interest in this innovative research.
“The calibre of entries for the Invention of the Year Award at UCC was incredible again this year, with a number of the entries attracting real interest from industry both nationally and internationally,” said Dr. Tim Roche, Director of Technology Transfer at UCC. “We are continuously working with inventors to develop and commercialise such highly innovative research and to bring new technologies to the next level. I would expect a number of this year’s entries for the Invention of the Year award to progress to spin out companies and to be licensed by companies to be brought to market”.
The ICT Invention of the Year Award was presented to a team of researchers from Sustainable Energy Research Group (SERG) at UCC including Dr. Dominic O’Sullivan, Dr. Marcus Keane, Ken Bruton and Dr. Paul Raftery. The award winning AHU Fault Finder software finds its application in large industrial facilities, where it will automatically identify faults in Air Handling Units (AHUs) which can cost organisations significant time, money and resources to detect. Developed under the Enterprise Ireland-funded i2e2 Technology Centre, the energy savings identified in trial at five large multinational sites in Ireland ensures that this product will be commercialized quickly. The inventors are already in negotiations regarding licensing the technology, which has attracted interest from the USA, and are currently in the process of setting up a spin-out company to commercialise this valuable product.
Among this year’s shortlist for the coveted Invention of the Year award in the biosciences category is the innovative SmartBandage, which automatically monitors the state of health of the wound and controls the rate of delivery of drugs, thereby reducing the recovery time and minimizing infection. An innovative laparoscopic medical device designed to assist surgeons during gastro-surgical procedures was also shortlisted; the “SecuRetract” provides an effective solution to "table tilting" which is currently required in some gastro-surgical procedures to prevent obstruction by the bowel during surgery. In the ICT category, a Tyndall research team created a highly disruptive invention in the optical communications market globally, with silicon nano-photonics technology. This innovation is the current "missing link" in the data transmissions market, enabling optical fibres to attach directly to silicon chips without compromising transmission speeds.
The Invention of the Year competition is a key element of the UCC Annual Research Commercialisation Awards, sponsored by Ronan Daly Jermyn, at which twelve new licences for cutting edge technology in the fields of biosciences and ICT were also announced. Indigenous organisations such as Kerry Group, Carbery, and Nualight as well as global organisations such as Intel were among the organisations licensing technologies from UCC.
“The ongoing research and commercialisation is world-class” said Dr. Tim Roche, TTO UCC, “and this is evidenced today by the well-known companies licensing technology from the many innovation centres on campus at UCC, from gatewayUCC, the Tyndall Institute and the BioInnovation Centre among others. These awards are a celebration of the achievements of UCC in the innovation and commercialisation agenda.”