Wednesday, 18 April, 2018
Funding for two LMU start-ups
GO-Bio competition
Dr. Petar Marinković (left) and Dr. Johannes B. Woehrstein
The BMBF funding initiative GO-Bio supports life science researchers with innovative ideas who are looking to go into business. It provides excellent conditions from an early project stage on for a successful switch from the lab to the economy. In the current funding round, two out of eight successful teams are from CeNS groups.
DEOXY Technologies
The 
DEOXY team (Dr. Johannes B. Woehrstein, Dr. Heinrich Grabmayr und Dr. Robert Grummt) develops a new method for fast and precise genetic characterisiation of tumour cells. The team works with CeNS member Ralf Jungmann and is located at the chair of Professor Joachim Rädler (Soft Condensed Matter Group). On a special microfluidic chip, thousand of tumour cells can be separated and analysed simultaneously. With special fluorescent nanoprobes it is possible to examine the gene activity pattern of the cells. Up to 100 different genes can be detected and differentiated by the fluorescent signal simultaneously. This high specifity is an important advantage over other methods.
NanoCapture
The NanoCapture team is headed by Dr. Petar Marinković from the Pharmacy Department (group of Dr. Oliver Thorn-Seshold). NanoCapture is a translational research project codeveloping the cytotoxins of Dr. Thorn-Seshold groups with nanoparticles, to improve the efficiency and safety margin of cancer therapy. NanoCapture is exploring a new two-component combination ("NanoCap"), reliant on small molecule organic chemistry, to actively shunt nanoparticles into tumours with fast delivery, high dose accumulation, and high tumour selectivity. The team aims to apply it to arbitrary nano-formulated cargoes (diagnostic agents for MRI, PET, or fluorescence; therapeutic agents; or theranostic particles), allowing medical applications for a range of nano-systems which have already been developed: both for early-diagnostic purposes, and for therapeutic anticancer use.LMU Press release...