The University of Western Australia has marked the 20th anniversary of Barry Marshall and Robin Warren’s Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with a ‘Rocking Celebration’ of the globally impactful health innovations that continue to emerge from UWA research.

The event, held last week at the University Club, showcased some of the more than 25 spinout companies formed on the back of ground-breaking UWA discoveries over the past 30 years and formally honoured Professor Marshall, who retired earlier this year.

In a surprise performance that reflected the ‘rocking’ theme – and watched on by Minister for Science and Innovation in Medical Research, Stephen Dawson, and UWA Chancellor Diane Smith-Gander AO – Professor Marshall joined the band ‘Hot Debrief’ on stage for their final number, playing electric guitar and singing along to Video Killed the Radio Star.

Image: Pro Vice-Chancellor of Industry and Commercial, Samantha Tough, Professor Barry Marshall, Chancellor Diane Smith-Gander AO and Professor Anna Nowak, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research).

Dubbing Professor Marshall ‘a deadly muso’ as well as an amazing scientist, Minister Dawson paid tribute to the way he and the late Professor Warren had revolutionised global medicine through their discovery of the bacterial cause of peptic ulcers.

“That work continues to deliver right around the world and it’s something that Barry should be proud of and that we should all be proud of,” Minister Dawson said.

He said it was important to celebrate the amazing research achievements coming out of UWA and out of the spinout companies and industry partnerships that research had generated.

“Western Australia is a powerhouse of medical innovation and UWA continues to build on this legacy through world-class research but also transformative commercialisation,” Minister Dawson said.

“We have to be proud of that. We have to sell it, we have to share it – we have to tell people and sing it from the rafters, because it does put Perth on the map.”

Before introducing speakers from six of the spinout companies and key industry partnerships formed to capitalise on UWA intellectual property, Pro Vice-Chancellor of Industry and Commercial, Samantha Tough, announced a major step in the University’s commercialisation journey – a $1 million follow-on investment in spinout OncoRes Medical.

OncoRes was formed in 2016 to develop precision cancer imaging technology created by Professor Christobel Saunders and Professor Brendan Kennedy.

Now in its second generation, the technology – centred on a hand-held imaging tool which helps surgeons accurately identify and remove all cancerous tissue during breast cancer surgery – is on the cusp of being assessed for US regulatory approval.

“It’s the first follow-on investment by The University of Western Australia in one of its technology companies,” Ms Tough said. “It’s a really significant milestone for the University and hopefully one we can build on.”

OncoRes CEO Kath Giles told the audience that when OncoRes formed, its founders were repeatedly advised that if they wanted to succeed, they needed to move interstate or overseas.

“We were told there just wasn’t going to be the funding, the talent or the manufacturing ability here in WA. But we didn’t believe that,” Dr Giles said.

“Being in WA has been one of our greatest advantages. We’ve built a team that looks very different from your normal medtech company, because we’ve leant into what makes this place unique.

“We’ve brought in talent from aeronautics, defence, mining, automotive – drawing on engineering expertise that wasn’t born in healthcare but has been brilliant for it, because when you bring in diverse perspectives around a single shared problem, you find answers nobody saw coming.”

The evening also saw presentations from:

• John Van Der Wielen, chairman of regenerative medicine company Orthocell, a UWA spinout already worth hundreds of millions of dollars through its production of ground-breaking nerve-repair products first developed by Professor Minghao Zheng. Mr Van Der Wielen, who predicted Orthocell would eventually be worth more than a billion dollars, described the ‘virtuous circle of investment’ that had resulted from a true commercial partnership with UWA.

• UWA human lactation scientist Professor Donna Geddes, who celebrated UWA’s 30-year relationship with Swiss breast pump company Medela AG. Medela has worked with UWA researchers to develop technology including a new generation of breast pumps that have become the global mainstay of pumps in hospitals. The partnership has produced more than 260 publications and almost $35 million in research funding.

• Dr Maud Eijkenboom, managing director of spinout company Lixa, which is developing hyper-scalable technology to counteract antimicrobial resistance – a rapidly growing problem predicted to lead to 39 million deaths and $100 trillion in economic loss by 2050. Dr Eijkenboom described the applicability of the technology not just to the health-related humanitarian crisis, but industry problems including biocorrosion – a $2.7 trillion market.

• Associate Professor Matt Piggott, a medicinal chemist and director of UWA/The Kids Research Institute Australia start-up Setonix Pharmaceuticals, which is building on research into small-molecule compounds to develop orally available immunotherapy drugs to improve outcomes for cancer patients, and investigating psychotropic drugs to treat conditions like PTSD, Parkinson’s Disease, childhood epilepsy, ADHD and narcolepsy.

• Emma Paterson, a UWA PhD student and founder of Twisted, whose blue-sky research into dark matter led to unexpected discoveries around ‘twisted light’ which could solve the problem of side effects in therapeutic drugs by eliminating the problematic mirror image of pharmaceutical and other compounds. Previously, creating pure forms of these compounds has been prohibitively expensive and labour-intensive, but the patented process Twisted has developed offers a fast, cost-effective solution that disrupts current market options.