Organ-on-a-Chip Network and Emulate Proof of Concept Awards
Starting in 2020, the UK Organ-on-a-Chip Network and Emulate, Inc funded a Proof of Concept (PoC) Award scheme for members of the Network. The PoC awards were developed to enable academics to generate preliminary data to support future grant applications and further use of the Emulate platform. The initiative, generously supported by Emulate, consisted of approximately £100k of funding which was used to support multiple research projects and provide access to £150,000 of state-of-the-art organ-chip technology available at The Queen Mary+Emulate Organs-on-Chips Centre.
Emulate’s platform has been adopted by top biopharmaceutical companies, by U.S. governmental agencies, and by academic research centres worldwide. Researchers may develop new chip models or use Emulates current optimised organ models which include: Liver, Proximal Tubule Kidney, Brain, Lung, Colon Intestine and Duodenum Intestine. The PoC Awards provide an exciting opportunity for members of the UK Organ-on-a-chip Network to engage with this technology.
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This scheme has operated 3 PoC funding rounds providing the following.
- 6 Blank Emulate Organ-Chips
- Hands-on training using the Emulate Organ-chip platform
- Support to refine the proposed proof of concept experiment
- Centre Scientist/Technician time to run the proof of concept experiment at the Queen Mary+Emulate Organs-on-Chips Centre
Each project PI was required to pay the access fee of c£600 which covered access to the Centre for the hand-on training and associated administration costs and some basic consumables.
In the final round we wanted to fund a single larger, more comprehensive PoC study and provid this with:
Award Round 4
| Principal investigator: | Stefaan Verbruggen, Queen Mary University of London |
| Co-investigators: | Hazel Screen, Queen Mary University of London
|
Award Round 3
| Principal investigator: | Tina Chowdhury, Queen Mary University of London |
| Co-investigators: | Stefaan Verbruggen, University of Sheffield
Jonathan Grigg, Queen Mary University of London
Anna David, University College London
|
| Principal investigator: | Driton Vllasaliu, Kings College London |
| Co-investigators: | Julia Mantaj, Anglia Ruskin University
|
| Principal investigator: | Shishir Shetty, University of Birmingham |
| Co-investigators: | Peter Hewett, University of Birmingham
|
| Principal investigator: | Claire Bourke, Queen Mary University of London |
| Co-investigators: | Tafhima Haider, Queen Mary University of London
|
| Principal investigator: | Victoria Sanz-Moreno, Queen Mary University of London |
| Co-investigators: | Remi Samain, Queen Mary University of London
|
| Principal investigator: | Nazila Kamaly, Imperial College London |
| Co-investigators: | Oscar Ces, Imperial College London
Jake Samuel, Imperial College London
|
Award Round 2
| Principal investigator: | Teresa Tropea, University of Manchester |
| Co-investigators: | Paul Brownhill, University of Manchester
Virginia Pensabene, University of Leeds
|
| Principal investigator: | Emma Chambers, Queen Mary University of London |
| Principal investigator: | John Sayer, Newcastle University |
| Co-investigators: | Elisa Molinari, Newcastle University
|
| Principal investigator: | Fran Balkwill, Queen Mary University of London |
| Co-investigators: | Mina Mincheva, Queen Mary University of London
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| Principal investigator: | Mark Chambers, University of Surrey |
| Co-investigators: | Diane Lee, University of Surrey
Geoff Smith, North Carolina State University
Ronald Baynes, North Carolina State University
|
Award Round 1
| Principal investigator: | Karina Wright, Keele University |
| Co-investigators: | Sally Roberts, Keele University
Charlotte Hulme, Keele University
|
| Principal investigator: | Neil Dufton, Queen Mary University of London |
| Co-investigators: | James Whiteford, Queen Mary University of London
|
| Principal investigator: | Neil McCarthy, Queen Mary University of London |
| Co-investigators: | Carol Munro, University of Aberdeen
Daniel Pennington, Queen Mary University of London
|
