Last month, the Translating Genomics in Oncology (TGIO) 2020 event was co-organized by two programmes of the CRUK Cambridge Centre – Early Detection and OncoInnovation – together with the University Enterprise Zone. The OncoInnovation programme is delivered in the Milner by our Head of Target Discovery Rebecca Harris and aims to support pre-clinical translational research for scientists across the Centre.
This cross-sector event was attended by a mixed audience which included academics, clinicians, industry, legal professionals and venture partners, and covered topics such as the challenges of translation, benefits of a multidisciplinary approach, routes for translation and clinical considerations.
The event also launched the TGIO 2020 Entrepreneurial Challenge “Use of Genomics to Transform the Cancer Patient Pathway”, and we are delighted to announce the winning team of Dr Dilrini De Silva, Dr Paulo Amaral and Dr Javier Armisen, who proposed “A cell-based platform for high-throughput PGx variant identification and validation”.
The team impressed the judges with their approach, with Dr Michael Salako from Start Codon saying: “It is a pleasure to be able to award this prize to such a strong team, who are taking a unique approach to tackle an issue with high unmet need. We believe the team could greatly benefit from our mentoring and support and very much look forward to engaging with them at this critical step in their entrepreneurial journey.”
Dr Dilrini De Silva commented “We are delighted to be recognised for our vision to deliver pharmacogenomic insights for underrepresented populations to truly benefit from precision medicine. We look forward to engaging with the Start Codon and Illumina Accelerator Cambridge teams to help us achieve this goal and enhance our business proposition.”
