Making a positive impact on people’s well-being and treatment of diseases holds true for our customer projects in the health sector. We have witnessed strong growth in public funding for the health sector, and we are excited to have an opportunity to be part of various important projects that aim to tackle some of the most pressing challenges in the health sector.
One of the teams which has grown significantly in recent years at Spinverse is the health technology team led by Rohit Sood. The health technology team boasts a unique group of health sector professionals who have worked in hospitals, carried out research (such as oncology and cancer therapeutics, genetics, human physiology, molecular biology, and digital health) or have worked in the area of mental health.
Teamed up with project and ecosystem management and funding expertise, the collective resources of our people translate into subject matter expertise as we support our customers in building ambitious projects for their health sector and applying for public funding for them. Another key contribution our experts are bringing into many projects is facilitation and leadership of joint projects or larger ecosystems. Here are a few examples.
CleverHealth Network ecosystem co-creates digital innovations for clinical needs
This extensive ecosystem led by Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) started its 6th year of operations, bringing together public organisations, large ICT organisations, start-ups, and pharma companies to co-create digital innovations for identified clinical needs. Making use of the massive data lake of health data accumulated at HUS, the projects are making great progress in providing solutions, for example, in the diagnosis and treatment of acute leukaemia, brain injuries, rare diseases, and to help the daily lives of dialysis patients or mothers with gestational diabetes.
Spinverse keeps the ecosystem running with HUS by providing services for ecosystem leadership and communication. Spinverse’s Markku Heino says: “The joint R&D work with different actors is extremely fruitful within the CleverHealth Network ecosystem, and we are now starting to see first solutions taking the next steps towards commercialisation and productisation, bringing valuable tools to clinicians and patients alike.”
Increasing the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the development of Long Covid
Long COVID is a research and innovation project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme. Launched in June 2022, the pan-European project with a total budget of 8.2 M€ is coordinated by Helsinki University Hospital (HUS). Spinverse is one of the partners in this project, making a difference to Long Covid Syndrome (LCS) sufferers, leading innovation management and day-to-day management of the project. Malin Tverin from Spinverse is the project manager in this project. She says: “It is very exciting to be part of this project, which combines mechanistic and clinical research and employs AI to create a way to predict the development of COVID-19 illness to LCS at an early stage. This, in turn, reduces the burden LCS causes on healthcare and society, which is heavy since LCS affect people in working age”.
STARDUST project provided innovations to treat Parkinson’s Disease
The main goal of the STARDUST consortium project, which was recently completed, was to realise a novel wireless implantable and independent micro-scale device (200x200x200 μm3) enabling in-vivo electrophysiology, optogenetics and ultra-localised drug delivery in freely moving animals. The device will be used to target specific neural circuits of the brain and test a new therapeutic approach for Parkinson’s Disease.
Spinverse’s Rohit Sood, who has been involved in the STARDUST project since 2018 says: “The STARDUST project participants have carried out significant scientific research to find new ways that may in the future help patients suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. STARDUST’s platform approach is inherently foundational, which entails a plethora of opportunities for future technology developments applied (pre)clinically in the context of diverse readouts ranging from physiological to behavioural. Project results demonstrate an optical approach for systematic brain-wide mapping of neurological diseases and define the “toolbox” needed for the manipulation of brain circuits. Further, STARDUST consortium also increased the visibility of their work through a series of multidisciplinary courses on the study fields of the STARDUST project.”
We have some other interesting health tech projects we are soon launching with our customers – stay tuned!
Do not hesitate to contact us if you are interested in boosting your research activities through public funding and collaboration and growing your business in the healthcare sector!
We are looking for a colleague for the health technologies team in Gothenburg, Sweden. Read more and apply for the position here.