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SMART: SCOTLAND Supporting Scottish Innovation Case Studies

IN-PHAGE LTD

Winner of SMART Award

'It can take up to 5 years to get a new pesticide to market.
The SMART Award effectively kick-started this process, allowing a full-time researcher to be employed in the laboratory whilst the founders concentrated on developing the commercial side of the business.'

The Way They Were

Drs Alison Blackwell and Sue Welburn were both members of staff at the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine when they set up In-Phage Ltd with seed corn funding from the Edinburgh Technology Fund. Both are entomologists but working at different ends of the spectrum; Alison on insect ecology, behaviour and control, whilst Sue is a molecular entomologist, with particular interest in tsetse fly transmitted sleeping sickness. Between them, a window of opportunity was identified for novel methods of insect control: many existing insect control products are rapidly becoming redundant, due to increasingly restrictive legislation (relating to health and safety issues), in addition to growing resistance of some major pests to traditional control products. Furthermore, there is an increasing customer demand for environmentally-friendly, non-chemical means of insect control.

It was decided to try and target the very life-support mechanism of large numbers of insect pests. Insects which live in specialised niches (e.g. blood-, plant- and cellulose feeders) often lack essential nutrients in their diets, which instead are provided by symbiotic bacteria living in or close to their gut. Start-up funds from Edinburgh Technology Fund enabled us to confirm the importance of these bacteria and that their removal (with antibiotics) resulted in disruption of insect growth, survival and reproduction. Clearly, antibiotic treatment of insects would not be a viable method of control, which would require a different line of attack.

'Phage therapy' is growing in importance in both human and veterinary medicine to combat antibiotic-resistant infections. 'Phage' (or bacteriophage) are bacteria-specific viruses which destroy bacteria by injecting their own DNA into the bacterial cell, which is then instructed to produce new phage particles. The bacterial cell bursts within 30 minutes of infection, releasing new phage to infect further bacterial cells. Our aim was to try and develop this technique with insect bacterial symbionts to effect control. Hence, a SMART:SCOTLAND Award was applied for to initiate the R&D which would help us with this aim.

Using the SMART Award

The SMART Award allowed In-Phage to explore their ideas regarding the use of bacteriophage in insect control. It can take up to five years to get a new pesticide to market due to the regulatory issues which have to be attended to
The SMART Award effectively kick-started this process, allowing a full-time researcher to be employed in the laboratory, whilst the Founders concentrated on developing the commercial side of the business, including investigating the market in more detail and protecting the intellectual property associated with the technology.
By the end of the project, we had investigated a range of both specific and generalist bacteriophage for in vitro activity against insect symbiont cultures, in addition to in vivo assays of active bacteriophage with target insects, assessing the effects on symbionts, insect survival and reproduction. Key pest targets were identified through both our market research and discussions with significant players in the marketplace. These include the ubiquitous cockroach and the house dust mite, which is the major cause of childhood asthma.

The Effect of the SMART Award

The SMART Award enabled us to make significant progress in assessing the potential for applying 'phage therapy' techniques to insect control, raising a number of important technical issues regarding specificity and delivery mechanism which we hope to explore in a SPUR application. The endorsement from SMART also helped raise the profile of In-Phage within the businesses community, putting us in touch with a number of invaluable contacts. It has also enabled us to speak directly to the pest control industry, who largely have given very good feedback, seeing the potential of the technology. This has been a massive boost to our confidence of taking an academic concept through the stages required to get it out into industry.

Through a detailed examination of the pest-control market during the project, we have been able to revise our business model, deciding to concentrate on developing our platform bacteriophage technology for key markets, with the aim of gaining revenue through licensing deals. In addition, we have begun to create a revenue stream from contract research and consultancy, drawing on a wealth of research experience which lies within the company. These contracts are allowing us to build relationships with international pest-control companies, which may eventually become licensing partners for our core bacteriophage technology.

The business now employs two full-time researchers and several consultants and is being headed by Alison, who is currently supported through a prestigious Scottish Enterprise/Royal Society of Edinburgh 'Enterprise Fellowship'.

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