AzureCell Therapies and Myriad Optics Awarded by Gebert Rüf Stiftung Innobooster Programme

Two Swiss Health Valley projects, from EPFL and University of Geneva, got a CHF 150’000 Innobooster grant from Gebert Rüf Stiftung programme: AzureCell Therapies and Myriad Optics.

AzureCell Therapies | Bilal Fares, University of Geneva

Every 9 min, a new patient is diagnosed with Parkinson’s, a condition long considered incurable due to the irreversible loss of neurons in the brain. It is currently impossible to produce these lost neurons in the lab and to transplant them back into patients’ brains to restore their lives. Moreover, current approaches that are in development are unsafe due to tumor risks, unsustainable due to high costs, and inefficient as many of the transplanted neurons eventually die in the brain. At Azure Cell Therapies, leveraging 18 years of research at the University of Geneva and a strong portfolio of 5 patents, the team has developed a groundbreaking approach to generate neurons from stem cells at scale in the lab, program them to be tumor safe, and engineer them for enhanced survival in the brain. Through these innovations, the company is redefining the future of medicine for Parkinson’s by developing curative cell therapies that are scalable, safe and of long-lasting sustained effects.

Myriad Optics | Marwan El Chazli, EPFL

Myriad Optics is developing a new method for fast detection and identification of bacterial pathogens in the food industry. Today’s testing methods are slow and require up to 5 days to provide a result, leading to significant health risks for customers who eat contaminated products, significant food waste and extremely costly recalls. By combining Raman spectroscopy and microfluidics in an easy-to-use system, Myruad us making it possible to get pathogen test results in a just few hours, reducing the time-to-results by 75-95% and dramatically improving quality control processes in the food industry at an affordable price.

Four other university projects also awarded

ZuriEV (ETHZ) provides a high-performance liquid biopsy solution for early cancer detection. AITHON Robotics (ETHZ) enables faster, safer, and more affordable inspection and maintenance of infrastructure assets.  FireDrone (EMPA), the world’s first aerial robot capable of safe, autonomous operation in environments up to 200 °C. And Xelerit, (ETHZ) an AI-powered software layer that frees automation software from hardware constraints, making production lines more efficient.

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