APC News
APC announces winners of inaugural Entrepreneurship Bursary Awards
A core aim of APC Microbiome Ireland’s (APC) strategic Vision 2021‐2026 ‘Making a Difference through Microbiome Science’ is to foster a culture of entrepreneurship and partner with relevant stakeholders to establish new, investor‐ready spin out companies. To support this, in 2023 APC has launched a new Entrepreneurship Bursary competition with funding awards of up to €5,000 to allow researchers to develop ideas or existing technologies/IP for a new spin‐out company through the generation of proof‐of‐concept experimental data.
The 2023 APC Entrepreneurship Bursary Award winners are:
- Ms Clara Deady, PhD student
- Dr Christopher Turkington,Postdoctoral researcher
- Dr Harriet Schellekens, Funded Investigator
- Dr Julie O’ Sullivan, Postdoctoral researcher
- Prof Jens Walter, Principal Investigator
- Dr Miguel Fernandez de Ullivarri, Postdoctoral researcher
- Dr Siobhain O’Mahony, Funded Investigator
The Bursary projects span a range of projects from antibiotic alternatives, to skin health solutions, and restoration of vanished species from the Western gut microbiome.
Congratulating the winners, Prof Paul Ross, APC Director said: “I want to applaud our first group of Entrepreneurship Bursary winners and on the truly interesting and varied commercially-oriented projects they have put forward. Our goal is to have a portfolio of thriving high‐potential APC spin‐out companies across a range of microbiome fields by 2026, and this new bursary will provide an important support platform to help stimulate and drive this.”
The new bursary from APC reflects UCC’s Strategic Plan 2023‐2028 ‘Securing our Future’ which is based on a cornerstone of cultivating a strong culture of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship across the University to help generate spin-out companies that will create employment and encourage inbound investment into academia.
In the last 12 years APC has spun out four new companies: Atlantia Clinical Trials, Artugen Therapeutics (now Adiso Tx), 4D Pharma Cork Ltd, and SeqBiome. Another University College Cork spin‐out company associated with the APC, PrecisionBiotics Ltd, was acquired by Novozymes in 2020.
For more on this story contact:
Media Contacts
Tina Darb APC Microbiome Ireland 087 7826500 tdarb@ucc.ie
