ACCELERATE Innovation Team Challenge - Team "Option"

The ACCELERATE Innovation Team Challenge has brought together researchers and clinicians across UCL, and funded collaborative projects such as Option, to address global healthcare issues.

About the Team

Team "Option", aims to create a free personalised nutririon support service for breast cancer patients to improve their personal wellbeing. The project involves addressing the lack of nutritional information for patients undergoing chemotherapy for breat cancer by developing an app to personally tailor nutritional advice. 

Awarded £10K, Autumn 2021:

• Dr Cristina Venturini (epidemiologist/geneticist, ICH UCL)
• Dr Jenni Pratita (MSc student UCL and trainee cardiothoracic surgeon)
• Dr Robert Smilie (NHS clinical researcher, Royal Free)
• Dr Stefan-Adrian Voo (consultant nuclear medicine physician, UCLH)

Training Received

The ACCELERATE Innovation Team Challenge focuses on developing and refining the teamwork, leadership and communication skills that are essential for research leadership roles and for successful healthcare delivery. The seven-week hands on training programme allows individual applications to apply knowledge and skills to develop a proposal to solve a real-life translational research challenge of their choosing in an interdisciplinary team. 

Where is the project now? (March 2022)

The team are receiving wrap-around support and mentorship from the translational ecosystem at UCL including support from the TRO's Patient and Public Involvement team to pull together panels of breast cancer patients for further refinement of the idea, through to exposure to social enterprise business developers at UCLB and adoption specialists at UCLP.