The global rat population is estimated to be at 60 Billion (i.e. 8 rats/human), causing growing socioeconomic, health and environmental problems. PiedPiper Technology is a revolutionary safe and humane pest control system for the control of rats, mice and other pest populations. It is the first solution that does not rely on the ingestion of toxin by rodents. It comprises a novel pest control device (PCD) incorporating an aerosol that delivers a metered dose of toxin onto the back of the rodent sufficient to kill in one application. The toxin passes through the skin and a quick and humane death results within 48 hours (compared to weeks with currently available products) to ensure that future populations of rodents will not develop resistance to the new toxin. This is a breakthrough versus the current multi-feed anticoagulants that are creating a growing problem of highly toxin resistant rodents (super rats). Our low cost formulation is based on cholecalciferol, which is lethal to rodents but safe for humans and other species. It has proven 100% effective in independent trials and, unlike current products, leaves no environmental residues. To gear up for a dominant position in the growing global rodenticides market- forecast to be worth over $ 1004.72 million by 2021- we will scale up our PCD for mass production, establish aerosol production, create an IoT platform of cloud connected devices for remote monitoring and predictive pest control management, obtain regulatory approvals for opening key markets in EU, US, Japan and Australasia. In the Phase 1, we will perform a market study to quantify the size of the global market and the segments we can target, expected market share, go-to-market strategy, revenue models and 5 year sales projections and KPIs. We will also define the most appropriate strategy for adding cognitive capability to an IoT platform of cloud connected PCDs for predictive pest control management to gain additional advantage in the market.

As DNA testing is most commonly centralised in labs, it lacks the turnaround time for time-sensitive applications, and also lacks mobility. The experience in biology required to prepare samples and carry out testing obfuscate the process and limit point-of-care applications. Biomeme seeks to break down these barriers with their versatile Dx System, a holistic solution to bring DNA testing out of the labs and into the physician’s office. Thus, Biomeme provides Molecular Diagnostics for the on-demand economy. By simplifying the process of DNA testing, without sacrificing the detail to be found in raw data, the Biomeme solution brings molecular diagnostic into point-of-care medical services, making it available for homecare and other point-of-need uses.

Global salmon production is ~1.5 million tonnes, with the UK currently at ~170,000 tonnes, which is worth approximately £1 billion to the UK economy annually. The majority of UK salmon aquaculture is located in Scotland and it represents over 40% of all Scottish food exports. Salmon farming is a growing food industry sector and Scotland has an ambition to increase its production by 50% by 2020. A major bottleneck of this growth is the provision of high quality feed that does not adversely impact salmon health. Salmon are piscivorous and traditional salmon feeds rely on wild sources of fish protein and fish oil that can no longer meet the demand from the global aquaculture industry. To overcome this shortfall, plant proteins and vegetable oils are being used to replace the wild sourced fish in aquaculture feeds. There are a number of major problems and constraints associated with this replacement, including reduced nutrient digestibility, gut inflammation, gut microbial imbalance and impaired resistance to pathogens. In this project, we will perform a series of experiments on Atlantic salmon and a zebrafish model fed with fish meal and plant-based diets to understand how these different diets shape the relationship between early intestinal development, immune function and gut microbiota. Zebrafish provide a unique model to study such a complex relationship because they are translucent and have established many advanced experimental techniques, including generation of germ-free larvae, live imaging of larvae colonised with fluorescent-tagged bacteria and generation of fish with fluorescent protein labelled inflammatory cells. None of these techniques are currently available for salmon or other farmed fish. By performing salmon feeding trial, we will establish how plant-based diets affect gut health (changes in gut morphology and gene expression profile) and how they change the abundance and diversity of gut microbiota. The diversity of gut microbiota will be determined by the state-of-the-art next-generation sequencing of 16S rRNA. Crucial to intestinal health is the establishment of a well-balanced gut microbiota community, which frequently happens at the time of first feeding. At this stage, the intestinal immune system is not mature and allows colonisation of the gut by symbiotic bacterial species. We will use zebrafish to study these early life events, with the key goal to test whether manipulation of gut microbiota improves the oral tolerance to sustainable aquaculture diets with high inclusion of plant proteins and vegetable oils. Thus, the microbiota swap between zebrafish larvae fed with fish- or plant-based diets may open up new avenues for investigating pathways to improved health and immune function in farmed fish. Finally, both salmon on different dietary regimes (and associated changes in gut microbiota) and zebrafish with manipulated gut microbiota will be exposed to a bacterial pathogen to determine whether the capacity of the fish to fight the infection depends on prior intestinal condition and microbiota community. The important part of the project will be development of molecular diagnostic tools for fish gut microbiota, enabling rapid screening for beneficial and detrimental sets of bacteria in fish guts. The main outputs of the project include: 1) Identification of key microbiota species associated with gut health and intestinal dysfunction in farmed fish (salmon) and a model species (zebrafish). 2) Evaluation of the capacity of gut microbiota to modify gut function and applicability of gut microbiota transfer to improve oral tolerance of farmed fish to plant-based diets. 3) Development of assays for detection of microbiota species, which can be used to create diagnostic tests for gut health.

The widely recognised, highly beneficial effects of fish as components of a healthy diet are almost exclusively derived from their high content of long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, EPA and DHA, which are known to be essential for proper neural development, and protective against several inflammatory conditions including cardiovascular diseases and some neurological disorders. However, over-exploitation of wild fisheries has meant that an ever-increasing proportion of fish in the human food basket is now farmed. Atlantic salmon, a so-called 'oily fish' and arguably the best source of essential omega-3 fatty acids, are the major farmed fish species in the UK. Paradoxically, diets for farmed carnivorous fish, including salmon, have traditionally been based on fishmeal and fish oil, themselves derived from marine fisheries. Continued development of aquaculture requires feeds to move from these finite, limited and dwindling marine resources to environmentally friendly and ecologically sustainable ingredients, specifically plant meals and vegetable oils, derived from terrestrial agriculture. However, the oil components of plant-based feeds differ substantially from those of marine-based feeds, completely lacking the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, which has important consequences not only for health of fish, but also the health of human consumers. Therefore, the challenge for aquaculture is how to farm fish in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner and yet maintain the high levels of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids that confer their nutritional quality and status as beneficial and healthy components of the human diet. The aim of this project is to produce novel vegetable oils specifically enhanced to fit the needs of the aquafeed industry by containing high levels of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, and that can be used to replace our finite reserves of marine fish oil and prevent the over-exploitation of this natural resource. The first goal of the research will be to develop varieties of oilseed plants that can manufacture and accumulate EPA and DHA in their seeds. The oilseed crop of choice, Camelina sativa, also known as false flax or gold-of-pleasure and a relative of rapeseed traditionally grown for oil in Europe, will be modified using a synthetic biology approach that will result in plants metabolically engineered by the inclusion of algal genes to manufacture the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, usually produced only in marine microalgae. The second specific goal will be to formulate plant-based feeds containing the novel, long-chain omega-3 Camelina oils and to test them in feeding trials with Atlantic salmon, which will determine the efficiency, nutritional quality, and safety of the feeds. A third goal will be to study the metabolism of EPA and DHA in fish cells where we can manipulate the fatty acids supplied very precisely and elucidate the biochemical pathways and molecular mechanisms involved in determining the fatty acid composition of cells and, in particular, the conversion of EPA to DHA. These cell studies will inform the metabolic engineering experiments by providing data on the levels and ratios of EPA and DHA required in the novel oils for optimal performance in aquafeed formulations. Since farmed salmon are a major source of long-chain omega-3 in the UK diet, with more than 1.2 million salmon meals eaten per day, this project can make a significant contribution to the health and well-being of the human population in the UK. In addition, by improving the sustainability of the UK fish farming industry, this project will help to protect more than 6000 directly employed and industry-associated jobs in largely rural areas.

The project aims to develop and validate methods for the in vitro prediction of cardiac side-effects using human cardiac cells and tissues. Drug-induced cardiac safety issues are a major concern of the drug development industry not only because of the severity of complications involving the heart but also because of the possibility that potentially valuable drugs are lost upon the discovery of cardiac safety issues. Several drugs have been withdrawn from the market following instances of drug-induced arrhythmia and many more commonly used drugs are associated with short-term pro-arrhythmic effects (e.g. amiodarone, terfenadine, cisapride) or longer term deleterious effects on heart function (anthracyclines such as doxorubicin). In a recent survey by the Drug Safety Council, safety pharmacologist and toxicologists within pharmaceutical companies rated their highest priority innovative technologies to be 'in vitro cardiovascular risk'. This survey also highlighted the perceived shortcomings of existing cell-based and in vivo animal tests and requests from regulatory bodies for greater emphasis to be placed on newer more predictive models of cardiovascular risk. Biopta aims to address this opportunity by expanding its current tests of human cardiovascular isolated tissues to include cardiac safety tests that specifically address the main drug-related risk of pro-arrhythmic activity. A secondary objective will be to identify markers of tissue health and function that may indicate long-term risks related to cell stress. The student will aim to develop methods using human ventricular and atrial tissues in order to better predict the risk of drugs inducing arrhythmia. Current methods are laborious, technically challenging and dependent on tissue obtained immediately from patients. Furthermore, throughput is a problem because tissues do not survive long enough and neither do the tissue samples generate enough test conditions. These factors have limited the use of human tissue, despite human tissue being accepted as a gold standard test system. The project will aim to extend the lifespan of fresh tissues through the development of more effective transport and storage conditions and will seek to minimise the amount of tissue required for each assay. In addition the project will investigate variability between human tissues and responses of different populations/patient groups to drugs known to induce pro-arrythmic effects in order to improve prediction and provide better care. In addition to reducing time and costs involved in drug development, the creation of such predictive in vitro models does fit with the priority of UK research councils to reduce the use of animals and in vivo experiments in research. Biopta previously received small grant from the NC3Rs fund to develop alternative methods for the study of gastrointestinal function and the use of human tissues in models of tumour function. The main goal of the project, however, is to develop a novel validated method for predicting cardiovascular risk.