Congratulations Discovery Award Winners: Round 2!

We are excited to announce the second round of Discovery Award seed funding, which sees thirteen teams from around the world receive awards between £10,000 and £25,000. Winners come from countries including India, Israel, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, the USA and the UK.

You can click on the profiles below for insight into the tests the teams are making, and what they plan to do in the future. Teams are at various stages in development of their tests, ranging from proof of concept to beginning clinical validation to fabrication of components for prototypes. They’re trying to diagnose all sorts of infections, including urinary tract infections, infections caused specifically by gram negative bacteria, E. coli and bloodstream infections, or sepsis.

Many of the teams are working on technology that will be able to detect the susceptibility of bacteria to antibiotics, which will be invaluable in guiding specific antibiotic treatments for bacterial infections, helping to further reduce the spread of drug resistance.

A range of technologies are being deployed, such as monitoring bacterial activity on light sensitive silicon-based micro-surfaces, detecting immune responses in the blood, generating barcodes to group bacteria according to their genetic make-up, detecting bacterial proteins by using chemicals which form coloured complexes, and colour changing polymers.

Applications were submitted between January and April 2017 and the panel met in June to decide the winners. Our next round of applications for Discovery Award funding are due 1 September 2017 and are exclusive to teams in India. You can also see our Round 1 Discovery Winners coverage here.