AcouSort and Consortium universities: collaboration as the key of innovation.
The partnership and co-creation between AcouSort and the BioWings’Consortium universities.
Ten years ago, AcouSort was spun off from a collaboration between Lund University groups about how to find cells of interest, such as stem cells and cancer cells, in clinical samples using ultrasound. AcouSort has ever since been collaborating closely with research groups there and elsewhere, resulting in several products, patents and publications. When the BioWings project was drafted, AcouSort was engaged to test new sound-generating materials developed in the project on acoustic cell separation.
It was natural for AcouSort to also involve close collaborators at Lund University and DTU Physics to be able to do this in the best way possible. This combination of long-term collaboration partners and new acquaintance from other research fields in the BioWings project has opened doors for applying the new sound-generating materials in biomedical applications in a way that would otherwise not have been possible.
How can Companies and Universities forge long-term collaborations?
Is the Horizon 2020 framework an operative way?
The Horizon 2020 framework stimulates and enables this kind of long-term collaboration between companies and universities by providing stable funding over several years, making it possible to both continue successful collaborations and try new ones that may become long-term partnerships if common ground and interests are found. These collaborations are a way for companies to stay at the absolute forefront of technology while helping to bring the results of universities into the society, as well as communicating the needs of the society back to the universities.
The first two years of the BioWings project has acquainted the project partners with each other as well as each other’s fields and generated a dynamic collaboration.
AcouSort has learned a lot about novel sound-generating materials from the project partners, knowledge that is likely to be applied together in coming products. AcouSort has in turn spread knowledge about the possibilities of and requirements on these materials in the biomedical field, based on experiences from the needs of various customers.
The project has resulted in an exciting joint development of the acoustofluidic technology that is likely to take the novel sound generating materials to the clinic in future diagnostic instruments.
ABOUT ACOUSORT
AcouSort is an innovative technology company with high focus on products and solutions for automated preparation of biological samples for researchers and life science companies. The core technology is acoustofluidics where a combination of microfluidics and sound waves is used to separate blood into its components, to isolate and purify cells and extracellular vesicles and to perform rapid biochemical reactions.
AcouSort’s core technology has been researched and developed for over 20 years at Lund University in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, research headed by Professor Thomas Laurell, board member of AcouSort.
