In response to the 2018 spring call InnoTREK, Mrs. Semira Gonseth Nusslé and Mr. Florentin Coppey submitted two innovative projects. They were both chosen to benefit from the InnoTREK grant of CHF 100’000.-. These funds will be a great help to continue developing their project and subsequently create their own start-up.
The project of Semira Gonseth Nusslé, named “Genknowme”, is based on the identification of epigenetic markers linked to alcohol and tobacco consumption and their interaction with the genome. Mrs. Gonseth proposes to develop a test based on these markers to assess the real biological impacts of tobacco or alcohol consumption that potential customer can use as informative and motivational tools. The test will require a drop of blood at the fingertip, which is less invasive than the other proposed medical procedures. The results of the test will raise the customer’s awareness and increase their motivation to control or stop their consumption of tobacco or alcohol.
Mrs. Gonseth will be hosted in Prof. Bochud’s laboratory in the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the CHUV.
Florentin Coppey’s project aims to refine a prototype capable of instantly identifying and quantifying narcotics in the field without the need for heavy laboratory equipment. This small device has the advantages of being able to accurately identify all common narcotics and analyze them in less than one second without destruction in a cost effective way. It also allows profiling various drug takings. This project responds to a market need with, among other things, the emergence of legal cannabis and the need to differentiate it from illegal cannabis.
Mr. Coppey will be hosted at the School of Criminal Sciences (ESC), in the laboratory of the drugs expert group under the supervision of Prof. Pierre Esseiva. The ESC is part of the Faculty of Law of the University of Lausanne.
For additional information on Florentin Coppey, please check the following news published by UNIL: https://news.unil.ch/display/1530699020232
The InnoTREK grant, managed by PACTT with the financial support of FIT (Fondation pour l’Innovation Technologique) as part of the InnoPACTT fund, supports selected researchers of UNIL and CHUV who have the ambition to venture into the business world with their innovative projects. These successful projects are chosen in a competitive process from applications received during the two calls per year. Since the launch in 2013, 16 laureates of UNIL and CHUV have benefited from the InnoTREK grant.
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