S3E Start 2024 | Meet the research team: Blood2Power

At this year's S3E Start Open Day, celebrated at the Tivoli BBVA Theatre in Lisbon, we interviewed the participating research teams to find out more about their projects and how they’re planning to implement the knowledge they’ve gained through our program to take their innovation from the lab to the the market.

Blood2Power is one of the 14 teams that was selected to join the 2024 edition of S3E Start, our program of support for deep tech research and entrepreneurship in Southern Europe, coordinated by our South3E partner HiSeedTech. Watch below the full interview to hear all about their work and their experience on Start!

https://youtu.be/SEaZOKtOs44?feature=shared

“This kind of program is very important for researchers because we get to learn a lot of new things beyond our scientific knowledge; our technology will only be fruitful if it goes to the patient, and thanks to S3E Start we are now closer to achieving that” — Andreia Pereira.

This project is pioneered by researchers from i3S - Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, and it revolves around the development of a system that harnesses electrical energy from the movement of blood and other body fluids to power medical devices. The full Blood2Power team includes: Inês Gonçalves, Andreia Trindade Pereira, Daniela Sousa, Herbert Middleton and Salomé Luís.

Want to meet the rest of the teams? Access the full playlist featuring interviews with other participating teams.

If you missed the S3E Start Open Day, you can watch the full livestream recording with all the teams' pitches or our event recap for the top highlights.


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S3E Reverse: University Hospital Cologne and CNT set on a mission to revolutionize medical research

Through the S3E Reverse program, University Hospital Cologne and Greek startup Creative Novel Technologies (CNT) are joining forces to develop AI-powered tools that can help researchers and clinicians bring new solutions to patients faster.

Part of the EU-funded project South3E, Reverse is a dedicated business brokerage program connecting corporate challenges with deep tech solutions developed by scaleups and SMEs from Southern Europe. The program is built on a successful open innovation methodology designed to foster collaboration and drive technological advancement.

The challenge

The University Hospital Cologne (Uniklinik Köln) is one of Germany’s most outstanding medical centers, internationally renowned for its innovation-driven research powering some of the most disruptive solutions in modern healthcare. Among its many successes, the interdisciplinary teams at Cologne are acclaimed for leading up the development of new treatments for patients underpinned by robust scientific research, especially in the area of rare diseases.

With the amount of research being produced by medical and healthcare experts, the university hospital has been looking at appropriate techniques to develop search strategies for systematic reviews of medical research. One of the main challenges that researchers encounter during their investigative processes is having to sift through multiple databases and sources of scientific literature, making it extremely time and resource intensive.

With this in mind, the University Hospital Cologne signed up to S3E Reverse as a Challenger to find a specialist tech startup capable of providing the ultimate solution to their key need.

After receiving Cologne’s challenge, Reverse broker Epaminondas Christophilopoulos was assigned to the mission of finding the best match for them. He is the UNESCO Chair on Futures Research at the Institute of Technology and Research (FORTH), and holds an impressive track record of providing foresight, strategy, innovation and long-term planning advisory in R&D activities carried by public and private corporations.

The solution

With a clear mission to leverage the full capabilities of IoT technologies to help others innovate, Thessaloniki-based startup CNT stood out as the most fitting Solver to tackle two challenges submitted by University Hospital Cologne: to develop sustainable search frameworks to support medical and clinical researchers in their day-to-day investigative work.

Dimitrios Tektonidis is the brain behind CNT's innovative solutions, a Computer Science expert leading a large network of specialists to create new products, services and integrated IT solutions — from the implementation of Internet Systems Management all the way to the creation of tailored Cloud-based systems.

By joining S3E Reverse, CNT’s team of professionals brought in their expertise and knowledge to help Cologne’s researchers accelerate their discoveries, bringing them closer to finding solutions to some of the most pressing health issues they’re dealing with. 

In order to tackle the challenge, CNT has offered their very own AI-powered semantic search services supported by the in-house developed ONAR framework, which has been developed as part of long collaborations with industry and research organisations, and previously validated in a number of business and use cases. This will help medical researchers minimize their paper scouting time, accelerating the speed in which life science researchers gain insights.

Thanks to CNT’s state-of-the-art IoT approach, this powerful collaboration with University Hospital Cologne is set to revolutionize medical research in academia, and in turn make a positive impact on the lives of many patients whilst paving the way for the future of healthcare innovation.


A call to innovators: apply to be a Solver and join the Deep Tech revolution!

This partnership between University Hospital Cologne and CNT is a testament to the power of collaboration and innovation to tackle industry challenges.

We invite all Deep Tech startups and SMEs based in Southern Europe to explore our challenges and join the S3E Reverse program as a Solver. The deadline for applications is 31 October 2024.

For more information and to apply, click here.