Success Stories 2 Success Stories
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Success stories 2 Success stories Contents Quantum dots herald next generation TV 5 Professor Paul O’Brien FRS Fifty billion chips and counting… 6 Sophie Wilson FREng FRS The next DNA revolution begins here 9 Professor Shankar Balasubramanian FMedSci FRS and Professor David Klenerman FRS Transforming lives by a new class of cancer drugs 10 Professor Stephen Jackson FMedSci FRS Smart software to ‘understand’ the world 13 Dr Mike Lynch OBE FREng FRS Green adsorbent nano-tubes to cut carbon emissions 14 Dr Semali Perera Blockbuster drugs: from fantasy to reality 17 Sir Gregory Winter CBE FMedSci FRS Sparking the plastic electronics revolution 18 Professor Donal Bradley CBE FRS, Dr Jeremy Burroughes FREng FRS, Professor Sir Richard Friend FREng FRS Success flows with green chemistry 21 Professor Steven Ley CBE FMedSci FRS Tiny molecules key to finding new therapies 22 Sir Tom Blundell FMedSci FRS Cover image Dr Semali Perera, winner of the Royal Society’s 2007 Brian Mercer Award for Innovation. © Nic Delves-Broughton, University of Bath. Success stories 3 Foreword The Royal Society is proud of the outstanding track record of research and development in the UK, including the contributions made by many of our Fellows. As part of the Society’s strategy to promote industrial The leading scientists and entrepreneurs featured science and translation, we are supporting activities describe their different journeys from “lab to market”, that help scientists to commercialise innovative research. the economic impact of their discoveries and offer advice One approach we are taking is to identify the processes for aspiring scientific innovators. Together, the case by which successful translation occurs between studies demonstrate how excellent research in the UK universities, businesses and the wider community. has led to innovative new products and businesses, created jobs and income and improved people’s health In this booklet we present ten personal accounts, and well-being. They reinforce the need for increased showcasing how the translation of scientific investment in the UK science base. breakthroughs into commercial success has been achieved in the UK. These success stories have been selected from a range of academic disciplines and industry sectors, including ground-breaking scientific discoveries in nanotechnology, computing, Sir Simon Campbell CBE FMedSci FRS biotechnology, chemical engineering, physics and Co-Chair, The Royal Society Science, material sciences. Industry and Translation Committee Dr Herman Hauser CBE FREng FRS Co-Chair, The Royal Society Science, Industry and Translation Committee 4 Success stories The biggest challenge was in the early stages in “raising the money to continue doing the work while still doing the day job”. Professor Paul O’Brien Success stories 5 Quantum dots herald next generation TV Professor Paul O’Brien FRS Better and sharper colour TVs with cheaper longer- Nanoco the company he founded with colleague lasting displays is one thing that Professor Paul O’Brien Dr Nigel Pickett whilst at the University of Manchester, believes work on quantum dots will lead to. is now valued at approximately £250 million. The company has generated a revenue of £11 million in His research to more safely mass-produce nanocrystals the last few years and has offices in the UK, USA and called “quantum dots” led to a start-up company called Japan, employing about 95 people. Nanoco in 2002. Nanoco partnered with Dow Chemicals in 2013 and Quantum dots are small particles of semiconductors, they are building the world’s first large-scale plant to which have unique properties due to their small size; they produce cadmium-free quantum dots in South Korea. are composed of a few thousand atoms. Small alterations Its first TVs using the technology may be produced in size lead the dots to emit different colours of light. by the end of 2015. They are also highly efficient – emitting 80 to >90% of the light put into them. Nanoco’s success was built on tenacity. The biggest challenge was in the early stages in “raising the money Quantum dots are currently used as markers in to continue doing the work while still doing the day job”, biomedical diagnostic kits and some liquid crystal TV says Professor O’Brien. displays, but they may one day offer a revolution in flat screen technology and may also be used in solar cells After two years, the funding started to flow, “and then and anti-counterfeiting markers. the rest just kind of snowballed”, he says. Professor O’Brien, a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), Professor O’Brien says getting advice from trusted had worked in inorganic chemistry since the 1980s. friends and experienced colleagues is critical in getting In 1996, whilst at Imperial College London, he and his enterprises off the ground. “Because the biggest fault student Tito Trindade discovered a simple method to that scientists have, and academics in particular, is make large quantities of quantum dots, which eliminated thinking that every idea they have is brilliant and worth the need for hazardous chemicals. It also allowed dots of millions and millions of pounds. And very, very few are”. defined sizes to be made. “We thought that the method might actually have value”, he says. 6 Success stories Fifty billion chips and counting… Sophie Wilson FREng FRS What do three-quarters of people on this planet carry “So we had to keep it small, simple, understandable”, around in their smartphones, tablets, computers or WiFi says Ms Wilson. devices? The answer is a small efficient microprocessor called an ARM. Now ARM Ltd, which sells designs descended from the 1983 work, employs over 2,800 people. In 2013, it had Co-developed by Sophie Wilson, over fifty billion ARM 1,100 intellectual property licences with 300 partner powered integrated circuits have so far been shipped companies, with a group revenue of £715 million. the world over. Ms Wilson has been involved in many technological The story of this ubiquitous technology goes back nearly successes during her career. A generation of British four decades to a UK start-up company called Acorn, schoolchildren grew up with computers in their which built home computers. classrooms – the BBC Microcomputer, which she helped design. Ms Wilson was recruited to Acorn in 1976 while still studying Computer Science at Cambridge University. In 1999 she was one of 7 founders of a new start-up In 1983, Acorn needed a processor for its next generation company in Cambridge based on her FirePath processor of computers and she and colleague Steve Furber set design. Acquired by Broadcom in 2000, now amongst about designing one. the largest chip companies in the world, the FirePath processors drive much of the global DSL infrastructure. They developed the first ARM, which excelled in energy-efficiency thanks to its simplicity, needing fewer Would-be entrepreneurs need tireless enthusiasm, transistors than other designs – making it ideal for advises Ms Wilson. When she wrote BBC Basic – the mobile devices. While international technology giants iconic programming language for the BBC Micro, devoted plentiful staff and resources to similar designs, she says: “I literally dreamt the code… the amount of the creativity for Acorn’s 32-bit RISC ARM processor dedication it takes is huge”. chip rose from austerity. Its success is credited by Acorn’s co-founder Hermann Hauser, who gave the team two things that Intel, Motorola, National didn’t give their engineers – no money and no resources. “ I literally dreamt the code… Success stories 7 the amount of dedication it takes is huge.” Sophie Wilson Image By David Boughey. 8 Success stories “ The market for human genome sequencing in 1998 was zero. The market today is several billion dollars and growing.” Professor Shankar Balasubramanian Success stories 9 The next DNA revolution begins here Professor Shankar Balasubramanian FMedSci FRS and Professor David Klenerman FRS The idea that you could have your entire DNA make-up The Solexa-Illumina approach harnessed “parallel sequenced for just $1000 – and in a matter of days, was sequencing” which allows fragments of DNA to be once unthinkable. simultaneously analysed. This has slashed the costs and time needed to sequence genomes by a million-fold, But it was a vision of what the world might become says Professor Balasubramanian. that encouraged Professor Shankar Balasubramanian and Professor David Klenerman at the University of The technology is now widely used. For example, Cambridge to develop their work on DNA towards Britain’s National Health Service (via Genomics England) sequencing – at a time when there was no market for is sequencing the genomes of 100,000 patients in a bid human genome sequencing. to understand disease. It was the late 1990s, and the seminal Human Genome Today it is “responsible for between 80 to 90% of all Project to map out human DNA was only part way DNA and RNA sequenced on the planet” says Professor through. But the pair realised their fundamental science Balasubramanian. research could be channelled towards decoding DNA. But it took some convincing for investors to help a “The sequencing was an application which was company with an end-product so far in the future. The unanticipated, it just came from thinking about these first thing investment companies ask, he notes is “how types of [science] problems”, says Professor Klenerman. big is the market?”. With initial funding from investment company “The market for human genome sequencing in 1998 Abingworth, they launched Solexa in 1998 to develop was zero. The market today is several billion dollars and cheaper and faster ways of sequencing DNA than the growing”, says Professor Balasubramanian. method then available. He advises entrepreneurial scientists: “Have a vision for By 2006, Solexa launched its own commercial DNA how the world might be several years ahead, along with sequencer.