Bugs for babies: new probiotic milk treatment
Dr Hall’s group at the Quadram Institute have formulated a probiotic milk treatment for premature babies. This will help populate their gut microbiome with the good bacteria they would not normally acquire due to premature birth. This treatment is being tested at the NNUH and could save lives.
Genentech $534 million deal to discover new IBD drugs with Microbiotica
In a ground-breaking deal, using gut bacteria metagenomics platforms from Microbiotica, Genentech hope to test new bacterial therapeutics from IBD clinical trials. This is Genentech’s first venture into the human gut microbiome and will focus on ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease and use Microbiotica’s vast sequencing pipeline to develop new IBD drugs.
Tropic Biosciences gain $10 million to test next-gen bananas
Tropic Biosciences, based on the Norwich Research Park, secured $10m in venture capital funding. Tropic, use CRISPR gene-editing to improve plant performance. This latest funding will allow greenhouse and field trials of these plants, and hopefully regulatory approval. Tropic hope to improve crop yields and benefit consumer health with next-generation disease-resistant bananas.
PBD Biotech funding announcement
Suffolk-based PBD Biotech have received £125,000 from New Anglia Capital to expand its work into Canadian markets. PBD Biotech develops and commercialises Actiphage testing to identify TB cases quickly in cattle. The test works in hours rather than days and could save farmers thousands of pounds, and reduce stress on cattle. PBD Biotech was launched just 12 months ago and has ventured out to Canada to explore new opportunities as part of an innovation mission supported by Innovate UK.
Super Camera to target deadly cancers
Norwich based company Invisible Vision have worked with University of Oxford to deploy their super camera in the new Rosalind Franklin Institute. The camera will aid targeted drug delivery and unravel drug biophysical mechanics, enabling more efficient therapies to be developed that combine chemotherapy and ultrasound together, and potentially saving many lives.
