Translation

We work with UCL Innovation & Enterprise and UCL Business (UCLB) to help commercialise research that will have a real and measurable impact on people’s lives.

Here are some examples of translational activity from within our healthcare engineering community.

Investment advances novel cell therapy for peripheral nerve repair

Close up replica of a nerve cell

Hundreds of thousands of people every year are affected by severe peripheral nerve damage. A team from UCL Centre for Nerve Engineering have developed an off-the-shelf therapy and UCL spin-out, Glialign has received significant investment to take this work forward.

Read the case study 

Odin Vision: space technology to fight bowel cancer

Dan Stoyanov and Peter Mountney

UCL spin-out company Odin Vision has received £1 million funding to use space technology to improve the early detection and diagnosis of bowel cancer.

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Two deals help commercialise bioactive aerogels for dental applications

Dental surgery

New technology developed at UCL for dental bone grafting and other biomedical applications uses bioactive aerogels. In 2018, the team obtained funding for a study to gain CE mark approval to allow sales in Europe and, crucially, also obtained an agreement from a multinational commercial partner to co-develop the technology for regulatory approval. 

Read the case study

Acceleration programmes

Conception X is a venture builder for PhD students involved in AI/deep tech. The programme was launched at UCL but is open to all postgraduate students from any UK university. 

Find out more

P4 Precision Medicine is an accelerator programme for early to mid-stage medical device, diagnostic and digital health companies. The programme is a partnership between UCL, Barclays and Capital Enterprise. 

Find out more

Prof Geoff Parker

Deputy Director (Translation), Institute of Healthcare Engineering

Geoff Parker - Institute of Healthcare Engineering Translational Director

"The most valuable lesson is that commercialisation is one of the few paths to real translation of research into healthcare. If a healthcare technology can survive in a commercial environment then that goes a long way to demonstrating that translation is viable, as it means that what you have is valuable enough for someone to want to pay for it"