Nanological, an ICMM’s spin-off, Innovatia 8.3 National Award as best technological business

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The Women's Institute and the University of Santiago de Compostela, within the Innovatia 8.3 project, have awarded Nanological, a spin-off of the Materials Science Institute of Madrid (ICMM), CSIC, with the prize for company of Technological Base. The award is endowed with 10,000 euros.

This is the IV Edition of the national contest “Innovatia 8.3, Awards for companies led by women and created with the support of universities or OPIs”. The objective of this call is to address issues related to university entrepreneurship from the perspective of feminist economics, technological entrepreneurship led by women and the commitment of Spanish universities to equality in knowledge transfer processes.

In this edition, 33 business projects have been presented, of which 18 are candidates for the Technology-Based Business Project Award and 15 for the Startup Business Project Award, which finally went to The Smart Lollipop, a company that has developed a medical device of diagnosis, non-intrusive based on an intelligent lollipop capable of detecting diseases with a single saliva sample, combined with information processing software, from the University of Girona, according to the entities' press release.

Nanological

Nanological is a spin-off of the CSIC located at the ICMM and focused on pathogen identification devices. It is made up of an interdisciplinary team of physicists, biologists, data scientists, finance and business development experts, and clinical validation specialists with extensive experience in biosensing. "We believe that only by combining different disciplines is it possible to push the limits of current technologies", they explain.

Nanological technology is based on the combination of different approaches for a common objective: fast Sepsis diagnostics.

“By combining our expertise in physical science and technologies with the fascinating possibilities offered by data science we are able to achieve unprecedented sensitivity and accuracy in pathogen detection”, explains Daniel Ramos, one of its founders with Blanca Caballero, Ana Isabel Ramos y José Francisco Caballero. In that sense, this team has combined optics, nanomechanics and machine learning obtaining a new concept of medical devices”, he says.

Ramos explains that, unlike other diseases, there is no single test for detecting sepsis: "Any infection (bacterial, viral, fungal or parasitic) can trigger sepsis, which can cause severe sepsis and septic shock, where the rate of survival depends on a quick reaction”, he indicates. However, these quick answers do not usually arrive: "Currently it is diagnosed based on secondary tests such as blood culture, which can take several days to obtain the results," laments the scientist. 

From the point of view of his team, "there is a need for new diagnostic methods that allow the rapid identification of the pathogens causing the infection to avoid the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics", and that is exactly where they work. 

"Nanological's main challenge is the development of a simple and affordable technology, capable of diagnosing an infection in minutes from the unequivocal identification of the pathogenic agent that causes it, which can guide the most appropriate treatment, avoiding the use of indiscriminate use of broad-spectrum antibiotics, helping to combat antibiotic resistance”, defends Ramos. "The prize will serve to continue advancing in the business model and prepare the next round of financing," he adds.

Innovatia 8.3

The Women's Institute and the University of Santiago de Compostela have jointly developed the Innovatia 8.3 Program, with the aim of promoting the entrepreneurial spirit of women in the scientific-technological field, in addition to the creation of an intervention model that integrates gender perspective in knowledge transfer processes and in the process of creating technology-based companies (Spin-off).

Among the activities carried out, the development of a procedures manual aimed at entrepreneurship support staff in the Research Results Transfer Offices (OTRI) of Universities and Research Centers stands out, in which the gender perspective is incorporated into all the processes to follow, from the design of the service, to the evaluation of its quality. This activity is complemented with specific training on gender equality for the technical staff of these Offices, generating a work methodology for the integration of the gender perspective in the support procedures for the creation of spin-offs, which is being transferred to other Universities and Research Centers in Spain.

One of the main objectives of Innovatia 8.3 is to carry out the implementation in the universities of the national territory of the methodology and tools developed since 2011 and designed by both Institutions, as well as to support the increase in the participation of women university students in entrepreneurship.

-- Ángela R. Bonachera (ICMM Comunication). Photo: Innovatia 8.3 --