The award ceremony for the Innovation Prize of the German BioRegions took place on May 4, 2022 as part of the German Biotechnology Days in Hamburg. With this year's Innovation Award, the Working Group of Germany's BioRegions (AK-BioRegio for short) honored outstanding ideas and patents with high innovation and economic potential as well as outstanding research results in the field of modern biotechnology and overlapping technologies for the 15th time. This year, the three equal prizes, each endowed with 2,000 euros, went to scientists from Dresden, Munich and Würzburg. In addition, a total of six finalists had the opportunity to present their inventions to an international audience of experts, investors, and the press, giving them the chance to win this year's Audience Award.
Dr. Stefanie Hartmann and her team from the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research (IFW) in Dresden were among the 2022 award winners selected by a six-member jury for their project “Automated collection of blood plasma for liquid biopsy.” The patented technology enables the continuous separation and purification of the liquid blood components (plasma with biomarkers) from the solid components (blood cells). “Winning the BioRegions Innovation Award for our CleanPlasma technology made me and my team very happy. The fact that we were able to convince the jury with our idea shows the relevance and potential of our development for the automated preparation of blood plasma samples for liquid biopsy in the biotech market. As a team, the award encourages us to take the next steps towards the planned foundation,” explains Dr. Hartmann.
The 2022 winners selected by the jury also include a project in the field of RNA-based drug development. The project “Inhaled antimiR against COVID-19-induced lung damage” by Prof. Dr. Dr. Stefan Engelhardt of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) involves the development of an inhalable RNA-based active ingredient against inflammatory lung damage resulting from severe COVID-19 infections. The active ingredient is selectively taken up by macrophages in the lungs using a new type of sugar coupling and inhibits a specific microRNA there. According to the jury, the technology is an innovative approach for therapeutic application and has high chances of realization for a market launch of a novel RNA therapeutic - and not only for COVID-19. Prof. Dr. Dr. Stefan Engelhardt was represented on site by Dr. Johannes Schmidt (Chief Operating Officer of the spin-off rnatics GmbH, which develops the technology of macrophage targeting of RNA drugs for clinical application).
The project “AIM Biologicals: Precision Therapeutics for Autoimmune Diseases Inspired by Pregnancy” (short title: Targeted Immunosuppression by Peptides and MHC Ib Proteins) by Dr. Valentin Bruttel from the University of Würzburg and Prof. Dr. Jörg Wischhusen from the University Hospital of Würzburg and their team also received an award from the jury. The working group has identified a mechanism that enables selective induction of immune tolerance and has developed a new class of biologicals, so-called AutoImmunity Modifying (AIM) biologicals, based on this. These AIM biologicals enable tolerance induction against freely selectable antigens.
The Audience Award also went to the project of Dr. Valentin Bruttel and the team of Prof. Dr. Jörg Wischhusen's working group. This prize was voted for by the audience via an online voting tool (tedme.com) following the project presentations.
Also nominated for this year's Innovation Award were:
Dr. Oskar Staufer from the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg with his submission “Fully-synthetic exosomes for biomedicine”,
Prof. Dr. Michael Hippler from the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster with the submission “Photosynthetic algae and use thereof for hydrogen production” and
Prof. Dr. Nico Lachmann from the Hannover Medical School with the project “Immune-Cell-Farming for Future Medicine”.
We congratulate all winners and nominees of the Innovation Award 2022 of the German BioRegions.
“Once again this year, there were numerous qualified applications and it was a challenging task for the jury to select the finalists and award winners from all the high-quality submissions. We are delighted that the Innovation Award and the idea behind it of drawing attention to pioneering inventions with innovative strength and market potential in the life sciences and bioeconomy have been so well received. The award ceremony could finally take place in full attendance again, so that the applicants could be offered the appropriate stage of the German Biotechnology Days,” said Dr. Nils Schrader (BIO.NRW) and Dr. Gerhard Frank (IGZ Würzburg), members of the AK-BioRegio and this year's organizers of the Innovation Award.