New spin-off QurieGen can have a major impact on drug development

QurieGen is a new spin-off of Radboud University that supports pharmaceutical companies in the early identification of successful drug molecules. This will have a major impact on the drug development process as it will enable rapid decision-making during drug design cycles to determine successful drug candidates for further studies on patients and drug combinations studies.

QurieGen has developed a unique method (QuRIEseq) to quantitatively map the mode of action of drug candidates across multiple pathways. The platform allows for high-throughput simultaneous quantification of multiple molecular “layers”: mRNA molecules and 100’ (potentially 1000’) membrane and intracellular (phospho)proteins across multiple pathways with single-cell resolution. This innovation replaces many different, mutually incompatible analytical tools that at best provide an incomplete picture of the cell response to drug perturbations.

Kinga Matula, a postdoc at Radboud University and co-founder and CEO of QurieGen: “Many drugs are designed to block a certain single target or protein in a signaling pathway. But our linear view of these pathways belies the enormous complexity of cellular networks. There is a severe lack of quantitative understanding of the mode of action of drug molecules across multiple pathways. We need tools that will allow us to capture and ‘untangle’ the full complexity of signaling networks and obtain the quantitative map of the dynamics of the cellular response. This will help to understand how drug candidates work before they enter preclinical testing and clinical trials, preventing the occurrence of unexpected downstream effects that are leading to diminished efficacy, toxic side effects, or the origin of resistance. Such a solution will be a ‘game changer’ – it will save time and money but also open the route to design new (better) treatment for patients.”

Major impact on drug development

QurieGen’s new and unique method will have a major impact on the drug development process as it provides insight into patient response to drugs, identifies promising drug targets, and opens up new routes for studying (new and more effective) drug combinations, or finding new disease patterns.

The near-term business goal is to build QurieGenQurieGen’s reputation as a leader in the field and engage with pharma R&D to identify the most suitable pathways and disease areas.

QurieGens’ long term goal is to enable the data-driven discovery of new cellular response patterns and new drug targets. By quantifying the cellular response to hundreds of cancer drugs and stimuli, they will generate a large data sets necessary to train algorithms that can identify cell-type- or patient-specific responses to drugs, and new drug targets. QurieGen is now taking the first steps towards the algorithm-driven approach by studying the mode of action of four BTK-inhibitors used for B-cell cancer treatment.

The potential of the QurieGen technology is appreciated by key players in the field, as evidenced by pilot trials with Aduro Biotech (Oss, the Netherlands), Janssen Pharmaceutica J&J (Beerse, Belgium), and Acerta Pharma (part of AstraZeneca, Oss, the Netherlands).

In may 2022, QurieGen won the NWO Venture Challenge.

World-leading scientists

The core of the QurieGen team is composed of entrepreneurs and scientists with strong expertise in single-cell, pharma, and business development. The technology development is based on years of experience and access to state-of-the-art equipment and know-how.

The founding team consists of:

Dr. eng. Kinga Matuła (CEO), co-founder, In 2018, she was working as a postdoctoral researcher in a spin-off company Cytofind Diagnostics, Dr. Matuła is a recipient of the Primus inter pares award (for best graduates of Rzeszow University, Poland), Young researchers Institute of Physical Chemistry PAS’ award (2017), and 5 grants. Dr. Matuła has extensive experience in single-cell multi-omics, microfluidics, cancer biology, and chemical and process engineering
Prof. dr. Wilhelm Huck, board member, co-founder and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of Sphere Fluidics (2010), co-founder of Cytofind Diagnostics (2017) and QurieGen (2022). Spinoza prize winner (2016) , Groeifonds winner (2022)
Dr. Hans van Eenennaam, Scientific and business advisor. Has over 20 years of experience in pharma R&D, was co-founder of BioNovion, co-inventor of Keytruda and former executive VP of Aduro Biotech Europe. Dr. Hans Eenennaam, recently served as Chief Scientific Officer of AIMM Therapeutics and up until March 2019 as Executive Vice President of Antibody Research and Site Head for Aduro Biotech Europe.
Ir. Jasper Levink, a former Board Member & Managing Director of Ttopstart, which transforms healthcare and life sciences by accelerating the introduction of impactful innovations, he is Non-Executive Board Member & Co-Owner of doccs | de slimme aanpak voor betere zorg and co-Founder and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Feniks and is CBO at LenioBio GmbH

Website EFRO grant period 2021-2027

For the EFRO program period 2021-2027, the new website www.efro-oost.eu was recently put online. On this site, you can find all the current information about the program EFRO 2021-2027 for Eastern Netherlands.

In the coming period, the site will be further supplemented with information about the grant opportunities, openings, rules, budgets, news, stories from entrepreneurs/beneficiaries and information needed for progress and final reports. Keep an eye on this website if you are an entrepreneur and would like to make use of it. (Please note, the website is in Dutch)

Zomer Ondernemer Rijk van Nijmegen

The ZomerOndernemer Rijk van Nijmegen project will start in mid-July. ZomerOndernemer Rijk van Nijmegen is an entrepreneurial project in which young people aged between 15 and 25 living in the region are helped to start up their own business. In this way, young people can become acquainted with entrepreneurship. An entrepreneurial attitude offers more perspective. You see more opportunities and possibilities and that is exactly what is transferred and stimulated among this target group.

The participants receive professional coaching and resources not only to work out the business idea, but also to execute the idea. In the past, this has resulted in numerous young people starting their own businesses thanks to ZomerOndernemer. And that throughout the Netherlands.

This project is being carried out in collaboration with various companies in the Nijmegen region. This includes workshops, speakers and company visits to interesting entrepreneurs. The project lasts 6 weeks with a three-day entrepreneurial training as a kick-off. This is followed by a number of return days followed by a festive kick-off where the participants present their own company.

Participation is completely free and is made possible by Fonds 21 and the municipalities of Nijmegen, Beuningen, Wijchen, Berg en Dal and Druten. More information: www.zomerondernemer.nl.

Press release: MS Sherpa receives an investment of 1.5 million euros

MS Sherpa, a medical device that monitors the course of symptoms of MS, will receive an investment of 1.5 million euros. In recent years, the Nijmegen data science company Orikami has developed MS Sherpa as a medical product, clinically validated it and CE certified.

With the new capital, Sherpa BV will now continue independently as a start-up to grow in the Netherlands and Germany, but also to develop a new product and apply it in Parkinson’s disease.

With MS Sherpa , people with MS and medical specialists gain insight into the presence and progression of MS symptoms by regularly performing self-tests on their smartphones. With the help of digital biomarkers, personalized information becomes available, which is used to monitor the disease course and the effect of the treatment and to make adjustments where necessary.

With the investment, the company will continue to build on the product in the coming years and make the solution available to medical specialists and people with MS in the Netherlands and internationally. The app is already available in the app store and can be used by someone with MS on prescription from the neurologist.

With the available knowledge about digital biomarkers and neurological diseases, work is also being done on an application in Parkinson’s disease, says the new CEO Jacco Schutte. “With digital biomarkers, we can gain increasingly easier and better insight into the course of complex neurological disorders. In this way we make a positive contribution to treatment and efficient affordable care”.

Get a weekly pitch tip from Frank Smallegange

To keep your public speaking skills fresh you should work on them on a regular basis. For most of us however the trigger to work on these skills is when we have to give our next presentation. To make it easy to keep your presentation skills on top of mind he started #FrankSays. With this hashtag he publishes, every Thursday, a practical pitch tip on Linked In.

If you want to keep improving your public speaking skills follow him on Linked In.

Story: Safe and sound under the Micro-Cosmos

At Briskr, we believe in the power of a strong network. Nijmegen is a hub for health and high tech, which means we have lots of companies in the area that are at the forefront of groundbreaking inventions. Take Micro-Cosmos, a company that creates an environment free of stimuli, so that patients improve recovery in their own space. A great example of how an idea can be transformed into real-life solutions.

Eef Lamers is the co-founder of Micro-Cosmos, but he is fair enough to admit the idea did not come from him. “At a Health Hackathon organized by the Radboudumc, medical professionals and students came up with the idea. I knew those students, but they were too busy finishing their studies to turn the idea into action. I suggested I could try and make it happen, and that’s how it all got started.” At that moment, the product was no more than a drawing. The problem it had to solve was patients in hospitals suffering from the many stimuli in their surroundings. “As a result, patients develop a lack of sleep, which causes a slower recovery.”

We need a solution!
As Eef explained, the product was developed with a very clear goal in mind. “The Hackathon was organized to solve this problem: patients need peaceful surroundings to recover.” In addition to improved patient care, the advantages of a solution are obvious to hospitals as well. “Of all elderly in Intensive Care Units, 70 per cent develop delirium: a state of confusion and disorientation. Because of this, on average, people stay hospitalized 7 more days and recovery takes longer. If you take in mind that daily costs of hospitalization are 500 to 2.000 euros, the possible benefits are quite clear.”

In his efforts to create the best possible solution, Eef maintains close connections with medical professionals from various hospitals. “I don’t have a medical background myself – I studied physics – so I have gathered researchers, patients and nurses to give feedback about the Micro-Cosmos.” We are currently doing a pilot with Radboudumc. At the Intensive and Medium Care Units, and at Cardiology, we are looking into the effects of the Micro-Cosmos on quality of sleep, stress, fear and delirium. We use pilots like these to learn about the ideal circumstances to use the Micro-Cosmos.”

Growing step by step
As a young company, Micro-Cosmos could use some help when they started in 2020. One of the ways they found the help they needed, was through attending Briskr workshops. “We needed to know things like: how does an insurance company work? How do you launch a healthcare product? The workshops helped us find our way. Many doors opened because we could get in touch with people giving us information.” This way, Eef also found partners that helped the company develop. “We are in touch with HealthValley and OostNL. The latter helped us clarify what we didn’t know about investors. This eventually led to a successful application for an innovation loan.”

The company continues to take steps toward its final goal. “We want the Micro-Cosmos to be a standard option for patients all over Europe by 2030. To reach this goal, we have to keep proving that our solution works.” The pilots in the Netherlands helped them gather valuable data on the impact of the Micro-Cosmos, but potentially revolutionary research is about to start in Germany. “We just returned from Berlin, where a year-long pilot will provide the most important information we could possibly get. Two-thousand patients are part of the study, which will help us convince other hospitals of the value of the Micro-Cosmos.”

Podcast Ai for Life: Adaptive Learning

Ep. 11 – Adaptive Learning
Listen to this episode from AI for Life on Spotify. The latest podcast about AI in Nijmegen is about adaptive learning. More and more schools are using digital tools to help students learn, and increasingly these tools are becoming intelligent. By giving real-time feedback and adapting the lessons for the individual student. In this podcast, we discuss the current state of the art and some of the challenges of this technology. How do you balance the needs of an individual student with those of the rest of the class? How do you use these tools in hybrid environments of physical learning and digital learning? And are these tools suitable for all teachers and learners?

In this podcast we talk to: Inge Molenaar, associate professor of educational studies at Radboud University Marieke van Osch, educational expert at the Ministry and Radboudumc and Jorieke Willems of the education company Gynzy.

Listen the podcast here on Spotify.

Innoboot 2022

Innoboot is the annual seminar organzsed by Briskr, Radboud University, RadboudUMC and the HAN. This year the theme was about the disruptive effects that AI has in the most important economic clusters in the region: Health, High Tech and Energy.

The first keynote was from Marcel van Gerven, Professor at Radboud University with the title “Brain inspired computing”. At Donders Institute, a cooperation between Radboud University and RadboudUMC, they try to learn from the human brain and translate this into advanced and more versatile AI approaches. Our brain is not a brute force machine (we would not be able to supply the energy) but has advanced approaches to predict and follow-up on the best paths. This research leads to more promising algorithms as well as better suited hardware, for example devices that help blind people see though a camera and feeding the brain with signals through implants.

For each cluster health, hightech and energy examples have been given. Read the full article.

SocialTech Network Series

With our population expected to grow in the coming decades, the Netherlands is
bound to face an increasing need for more resilient and effective healthcare.
To tackle the challenges before they become an issue of the future, municipalities are
looking towards innovation as the way forward. The Municipality of The Hague is
strongly committed to bringing startups into the social domain to develop the products
and services that are most needed.

Together with YES!Delft, the Municipality of The Hague is running the SocialTech
Startup Network Series, giving startups exclusive access to the Hague’s social domain
ecosystem. For this series, our main focus is to find technological solutions that help
people to stay healthy and independent at home.

If you are a startup (past the ideation stage) with an innovative and scalable
technology that addresses one of the challenges above, then it is your moment to
apply!

Networking skills: fun and best practices

Yesterday Mercator Launch and Briskr organised the annual Networking Skills workshop with Frank Stofmeel. This is a fun & hands-on workshop which is very useful for both experienced and inexperienced networkers.

We started off with sharpening our introduction. By trying out in 1 minute, 30 seconds and 10 seconds we learned the key words to stand out from the rest. We then learned how to break into a conversation during networking time, and also how to do that when you are an English speaker and the conversation is in Dutch! Of course, we also learned how to assess whether a conversation is really interesting, whether you have something to gain from each other, and if not, how to subtly get out of the conversation. Or to round up a conversation with a follow-up (coffee, call).

It was great to practise in a ‘safe’ setting and receive customized tips from both Frank and the other entrepreneurs! We look back on a very useful and fun workshop. Thank you for your enthusiasm & inspiration Frank Stofmeel! See you next year!