Research from Chalmers heading for Silicon Valley

Every year the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova selects research projects for the exclusive incubator program Reach with focus on technology relevant for the ecosystem in Silicon Valley and with the potential to be commercialised. This year, two of the ten selected projects are based on research at Chalmers.

The research projects from Chalmers are both about innovations that can contribute in developing new medicines and vaccines. In order for the discoveries to be utilised and commercialised, they are further developed by the startup companies LanteRNA and Envue Technologies. The Swedish projects chosen for Reach are selected from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences "IVA 100 list" and have already been carefully reviewed.

Below, the researchers comment on how being selected to Reach will affect their projects.

Marcus Wilhelmsson, Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Elin Esbjörner, Associate Professor at the Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, about the research project and startup LanteRNA:

"We are excited that our academic research from which these ideas originate is now receiving an additional push forward and coaching to become an important tool for drug developers worldwide by shortening lead times for new RNA-based medicines. It shows how important it is for academic research to be ready for new societal challenges, such as a pandemic. The program will help us understand the demands today and in the future from stakeholders where our technologies can be used and thus lead to new academic research projects that can hopefully help solve the next issue in industry and society."

Christoph Langhammer, Full Professor at the Department of Physics, about the research project and startup Envue Technologies:

“First of all, this means that we’ve got a good receipt on the relevance of our research and its utilisation potential, which we are of course very happy about. Not the least since the results originate from a project that has had a rather large extent of focus on fundamental research. That tells us once again how import fundamental research is if you want to make new discoveries. Another aspect of what the utilisation in general and the Reach program in particular means for our research is that we can build networks of stakeholders for our technique beyond the purely academic world, which will lead me to new research ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.”