Researchers in protein analysis can receive inventor award
Simon Fredriksson, Adjunct Professor in Molecular Diagnostics at SciLifeLab, is together with Ulf Landegren one of three finalists in the European Inventor Award 2024 under the category "Industry".
The prestigious innovation award is presented by the European Patent Organization (EPO).
Ulf Landegren and Simon Fredriksson, both researchers at Olink, have been nominated for their discoveries in large-scale protein analysis. They have created the Proximity Extension Assay (PEA), which enables sensitive detection of proteins in cells and links proteins to DNA strands with detectable data.
According to the EPO, PEA has the potential to significantly improve patient outcomes in several medical areas from early disease screening to individualized treatment plans.
How does it feel?
It's great that our work is getting attention and hopefully it will inspire others to invent and develop their ideas into products and businesses.
How would you describe your innovation?
Analyzing DNA has been relatively easy compared to proteins, although proteins are the functional molecules in the body and are actually more important to study in various disease states than the genome. So the idea was to enable the analysis of very many proteins at the same time with high analytical quality and specificity.
Our invention, which was inspired by DNA analysis methods, but then applied to proteins, has had a major impact on research and drug development over the past 10 years.
How can it contribute to research and to patients?
There is a lot of development going on right now using our technology, aiming to better and more accurately diagnose diseases in areas such as cardiology, inflammation and even cancer.
Text: Sabina Fabrizi