Researchers from UPorto granted the 2014 Novo Banco Innovation Award

inVitaSens, a project developed by IBMC’s Parasite Disease Research Group and by the Pharmacy School of the University of Porto (FFUP), is the grand prize winner of the 10th edition of the Novo Banco National Innovation Competition (formerly known as BES Innovation Award), one of the most important national prizes in the field of scientific research and innovation. Determining the best markers to identify leishmaniosis, an endemic disease that affects both humans and dogs, is the main purpose of the project inVitaSens.

A decade’s worth of work by researcher Anabela Cordeiro and her team resulted in a portable diagnostic kit. The final stage in the kit's development joined Anabela Cordeiro and researchers Célia Gomes Amorim, Alberto Araújo and Conceição Branco. This kit enables a screening of the disease from a single drop of blood and aids in deciding what treatment or vaccination procedure should be followed. Along with its heightened effectiveness over other diagnostics methods available, this kit decreases the number of false negatives tenfold.

The World Health Organization estimates that up to 2 million people worldwide are infected with leishmaniosis, which increases the urgency to screen the usual hosts of the disease – dogs and humans. In an effort to do so more swiftly and efficiently, the researchers form UPorto are hoping to introduce the inVitaSens kit in the veterinary market from 2017, especially in countries where reporting the disease is mandatory.

Besides the project inVitaSens, this year’s edition of the Novo Banco National Innovation Competition distinguished two other projects and 255.000€ were divided between the three of them. IBMC researcher Anabela Cordeiro is, once again, an actor in a groundbreaking team, as she is also a member of three EU-funded international consortia. The participation in these consortia – NMTrypI, KINDReD and MuLeVaClin – earned around 1.5M Euros for the research group she leads. Anabela Cordeiro now adds approximately 85.000€ to that sum.

The Innovations Awards ceremony took place on November 27th at Espaço Novo Banco. The Novo Banco National Innovation Competition handed out its first prize in 2005 and has since then been guided by the intention of rewarding innovative research projects, while raising awareness about the research being conducted in critical sectors like renewable energy, health and industrial processes. The project’s potential impact in competitiveness, its scientific excellence, innovative character, and the credibility of the company, R&D institution or author, make up the criteria taken into account in the assessment process.