More than 30 entrepreneurs from the University of Zaragoza have participated for two months in the I Spin Transfer Programme that has brought together researchers and professionals with entrepreneurial concerns to design innovative business models, eight teams led by researchers with business ideas based on Unizar research results.
The University of Zaragoza held the closing ceremony of this project, a specific training and capacity building programme for the development of university spin-offs that promotes the formation of multidisciplinary teams, on Friday in the Paraninfo, in which it awarded, among others, two research projects led by researchers from the Aragon Institute for Engineering Research (I3A), VASTO, whose head is José Manuel García Aznar, and Endomapper, coordinated by José Martínez Montiel.
The 8 teams participating in the Programme defended their business proposals in a five-minute elevator pitch format before a jury made up of renowned academics and professionals from the world of business and investment, such as Miguel Ángel Buñuel, Director of Innovation and Technology at BSH Spain, and President of the Joint Committee of the BSH Chair in Innovation UNIZAR; María Jesús Lorente, President of CEPYME Aragón; Santiago Navarro, CEO of TIN 50; and Tatiana García, Director of Strategic Projects at Hyboria Capital. The jury assessed the projects based on the entrepreneurial team, the transformation of research results into a business model, and the innovative and differentiating nature of the proposal, among other criteria.
The European project VASTO, which proposes vascularised tumour organoids on a chip as a preclinical model for cancer therapies, was selected as Best SpinUP UNIZAR 2023 entrepreneurial project.
It is a Proof of Concept (PoC) that integrates several multidisciplinary teams from UNIZAR (I3A) and the Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Aragón (IIS), supported by the European Research Council (ERC-2023-PoC). They will design and manufacture platforms for pre-clinical use to test treatments against solid tumours and improve their efficacy. These platforms will consist of microfluidic chips (different from traditional 2D culture systems) capable of developing vascularised tumour organoids to recreate their microenvironment more realistically. An important aspect of this approach is the presence of vessels with their real architecture, which will be implanted on the chip and help provide the tumour organoids with the necessary signals for vascularisation and growth.
Endomapper was selected as the second best SpinUP UNIZAR 2023 entrepreneurial project. A project capable of creating 3D maps of the inside of the human body to support the doctor during any endoscopy procedure. EndoMapper enables navigation inside the human body for medical specialists and robots in autonomous procedures.
Together with the other winners, they will receive a double prize, a validation study of commercial interest and a market study, to develop their projects.
The Spin Transfer Programme is an initiative of the Vice-Rectorate for Technology Transfer and Innovation of the University of Zaragoza, through its OTRI, Banco Santander, and BSH Electrodomésticos España, S.A. within the framework of the BSH Chair in Innovation, to support researchers in the creation of Unizar spin-off companies.
The Spin Transfer, which is part of the SpinUP Unizar Programme to support Unizar entrepreneurs, is aimed at University staff with a business idea based on a research result generated at Unizar for the creation of a spin-off, and consists of two phases.
