Sep 17 2008
MIP Technologies AB announced today that it has received funding from the Swedish Research Council for an industrial researcher collaboration (Industri Forskar Assistent - "IFA" project) with the Department of Physical Chemistry 1 at Lund University.
The project will run for 4 years. The theme of the project, "Polymerization in structured media: Preparation and properties of synthetic bio-molecules", is designed to explore and develop methods for production of smart polymer materials that mimic functionalities and properties of biological macromolecules such as proteins, enzymes and antibodies. This will be achieved by initially focusing the work on structure-performance relationships in known bio macromolecules. Using this information as a base, the active chemical functionalities will to be built into new synthetic materials via polymerization in structured dispersed media.
"This opens up the opportunity for an important cooperation between MIP Technologies and the University, a cooperation which would be difficult without this funding," said Dr. Ola Karlsson, VP Production at MIP Technologies and the industrial researcher in the IFA collaboration.
"Participating in this project will develop new competences and introduce important new ideas into relevant research areas for the company. The field of artificial proteins is at an early stage but developments in this project may see, in the future, the substitution of antibodies and other therapeutic proteins by truly artificial bioactive entities," said Anthony Rees, CEO at MIP Technologies.