Making ideas work for a better world

Bench to Bedside

Discover the University of Edinburgh’s world leading therapeutic expertise.

Explore how you can work with us as we open our doors to a campus that gives you full access to our academic researchers, patients, clinicians, scientists, partners and state of the art clinical and pre-clinical research facilities that can help you develop innovative ideas to deliver solutions to the world’s biggest medical challenges.

Edinburgh Innovations is the University of Edinburgh’s commercialisation service. We bring University of Edinburgh research to industry, working to identify ideas with value, and facilitating the process of bringing them to life in real-world applications.

We make ideas work for a better world.

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Featured Articles

Collaborative research in predictive biomarkers

Investing in innovation, from bench to bedside

Bench to bedside: with industry all the way

Collaboration, Diversity and Impact from Bench to Bedside

Macomics: outsmarting cancer

Professor Neil Henderson on developing therapies for liver disease

Pheno Therapeutics: a perfect partnership

Professor Jonathan Fallowfield tackles liver disease

Dr Luca Cassetta's innovation journey

Professor Neil Carragher's innovation journey

Discover our facilities

Discover the University of Edinburgh’s world class facilities that can support your projects from Bench to Bedside.

Dedicated support

Access cutting edge facilities and technologies to make new discoveries and translational developments in human therapeutics. Our specialist support guides you through the journey to drug discovery, every step of the way.

Cell-free testing

High Throughput Microarray facility houses cutting-edge protein, antibody and transcriptome microarray facilities for the analysis of complex signalling pathways and secreted factors across pre-clinical and clinical samples types.

Scientist in a lab looking at the computer

Cell-based testing

Phenotype screening facility is equipped with image-based screening platforms fully integrated with robotics and barcode tracking. Our team develops bespoke image analysis and informatics packages to quantify phenotypes. The facility has libraries of annotated reference molecules on assay-ready plates for drug discovery screens.

Animal Models

Pre-clinical imaging facility is part of a suite of state-of-the facilities dedicated to live-imaging of small animal models. It houses high-field magnetic resonance imaging (latest scanner 9.4 Tesla), ultrasound, micro PET/CT imaging and optical imaging. It can be used for in vivo non-invasive imaging of structure and function of all organs and tissues of the body.

Large Animal Models

Large Animal Research Imaging Facility (LARIF) is a unique facility in Europe with the capability for experimental surgery, monitoring and imaging of large animals (MRI, CT, Fluoroscopy and Ultrasound). It is a custom-built facility including ICU and Cat2 containment suites with technical and veterinary support 24-7, all year round.

Human Trials

Edinburgh Clinical Trials Unit (ECTU), underpinned by research governance, provides expert support to develop, design and deliver world-class clinical trials. The Unit provides trial management, medical statistics and data management. Strong links with NHS Lothian allows access to curated patient data sets for research purposes.

Discover our people

Discover the University of Edinburgh’s innovative therapeutic capability led by an exceptional team.

Professor Neil Carragher

Neil Carragher, a phenotypic screening pioneer with extensive industry experience, is Director of Edinburgh Cancer Discovery Unit, leads Edinburgh Phenotypic Assay Centre and is a co-founder of Pheno Therapeutics, developing remyelinating therapies for multiple sclerosis sufferers.

Dr Luca Cassetta

Luca Cassetta is an immunologist with extensive experience in human macrophage biology, clinical material handling, multicolour flow cytometry, and genome-wide studies that contributed to the development of the Macomics screening platform. Luca is a scientific co-founder of Macomics and currently Principal Investigator at the University of Edinburgh.

Professor Shareen Forbes

Shareen Forbes is a Honorary Consultant in Diabetes at the University of Edinburgh and NHS Lothian and has been Lead Physician for the Islet Transplant Programme in Scotland since 2010. Shareen is on the Novo Nordisk UK Scientific Council and her work is focussed on improving outcomes for those living with type 1 diabetes.

Professor Jonathan Fallowfield

Jonathan Fallowfield excels in translational liver research. He has pioneered bench-to-bedside work on the antifibrotic and vasoactive effects of human-2 relaxin in chronic liver disease and is currently leading precision medicine projects in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) incorporating big data/AI, digital pathology and bioengineering.

Dr Veronique Miron

Veronique Miron is an expert in neuroimmunology, MRC Senior Research Fellow, and Dementia Research Institute Group Leader, investigating the regenerative properties of inflammation to drive central nervous system white matter health across the lifespan. Her team is leading in discovering novel therapeutic targets for intervention in neurodegenerative disorders and neurological dysfunction by identifying the glial interactions involved.

Dr Emily Sena

Emily Sena specialises in the validity of preclinical research with a background in pharmacology and neuroscience. Her interests are in the use of meta-research approaches to drive improvements in the validity, transparency and reproducibility of primary research using laboratory models of human diseases. Her work has informed laboratory practice guidelines, editorial policy and clinical trials design.

Emily is the convenor of CAMARADES – a research group set up to improve translation from preclinical research to the clinic and winner of the 2021 British Neuroscience Association Credibility Prize.

Contact Us

Discover how we can help you develop innovative ideas to deliver solutions to the world’s biggest medical problems

Dr Andrea Taylor

Head of Business Development, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine

Our track record

Discover our spinout successes. Edinburgh Innovations has supported five therapeutics spinouts over the last year alone, securing £38m of investment.

Macomics

Path-breaking immuno-oncology spinout Macomics is developing novel therapeutics to modulate the activity of macrophages, increasing the body’s immune defence against tumours in cancer sufferers.

Cancer cells evade destruction by the immune system, and tumour associated macrophages (TAMs) are a key component of this immuno-suppressive and pro-tumoral ecosystem. The ability to modulate TAMs would alter the tumour microenvironment and thus enhance the body’s ability to fight cancer.

Professor Jeffrey Pollard is a pioneer of the study of TAMs and his research team was the first to demonstrate that they promote tumour progression and malignancy. The ground-breaking research he was conducting attracted future Macomics co-founder Dr Luca Cassetta.

Read the case study

Pheno Therapeutics

University of Edinburgh spinout Pheno Therapeutics is uniquely positioned to provide novel treatments that could halt the progression and alleviate the debilitating symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

Pheno Therapeutics exploits the clinical insight and vast drug discovery expertise of its two distinguished founders: phenotypic screening pioneer Professor Neil Carragher and world-leading regenerative neurology specialist, Professor Sidharthan Chandran, Director of both Edinburgh Neuroscience and the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic.

By utilising Professor Carragher’s Phenomics Drug Discovery (PDD) platform, and using a unique human stem cell model to identify novel remyelinating agents, the company aims to develop transformational therapeutics that repair damaged myelin sheaths, thus reversing the effects of the disease and significantly improving quality of life for MS patients.

Read the case study

SpeakUnique

Euan MacDonald lost his own voice due to MND and didn’t want his children to remember him by a voice that wasn’t his own.

Euan’s concept became a collaborative research project between the Euan Macdonald Centre and the University of Edinburgh Centre for Speech Technology Research, led by Alice Smith and based at the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic.

The team accessed world class facilities across the School of Medicine and the School of Informatics.

In 2019 SpeakUnique became a University spinout. By creating a synthetic version of an individual’s voice, or repairing voices that are becoming unclear, users can “speak” in a voice that is identifiably their own.

Read the case study

Resolution Therapeutics

Professor Forbes has been exploring the role and regenerative potential of macrophages in organ repair for a decade.

Based in the University’s world-class facilities at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine his team has manufactured and filed several foundational patent applications.

As a result of these discoveries Professor Forbes co-founded Resolution Therapeutics which, last year, received £26.6m from specialist healthcare investment company Syncona Ltd.

Backed by Syncona, Resolution are now harnessing the healing power of the macrophage to develop a novel and transformational therapeutic product that will effectively treat patients suffering from chronic liver disease and help them avoid the need for a transplant.

Read the case study