Using proteins to understand health and disease: Swedish inventors selected as finalists in the European Inventor Award 2024
- Inventors Ulf Landegren, Simon Fredriksson and their team transformed the field of proteomics by enabling large-scale protein analysis at enhanced sensitivity and specificity
- The two scientists are finalists in the ‘Industry’ category, competing against an Icelandic team and an Italian-German one. The winners will be announced during the award ceremony on 9 July in Malta
- Voting for the Popular Prize, awarded by the public, is open as of today
Munich, 16 May 2024 – According to the World Health Organization (WHO), each year, as many as 1 in 6 people who are diagnosed with cancer will die. Often, by the time cancer symptoms emerge, opportunities for early intervention have passed. However, breakthroughs in medical research are transforming this challenging situation. Proteomics, or the study of proteins and their functions in the body, was reinvigorated by Ulf Landegren, Simon Fredriksson and their team who together developed proteomic tests (or assays) for detecting and quantifying proteins. These tests improve disease screening for multiple illnesses and open new avenues for treatment. Selected from over 550 candidates, Ulf Landegren, Simon Fredriksson and their team are finalists in the ‘Industry’ category of the European Inventor Award 2024.
Bringing proteomics to the forefront
Inspired by the 80s PCR technology, Ulf Landegren, Simon Fredriksson and the rest of the team working at the University of Uppsala began tagging pairs of antibodies directed against proteins of interest in test samples with unique and easily identifiable synthetic DNA labels. This process led directly to their innovative Proximity Ligation Assay (PLA), and its later refinement as the Proximity Extension Assay (PEA).
“When analysing many proteins at the same time in conventional assays, the data quality deteriorates rapidly. To solve this issue we used antibody pairs, each coupled with a unique DNA sequence tag”, explained Fredriksson. “This way we could decode the reactions by correctly quantifying the properly matched antibody pair sequences, enabling scalable protein research for thousands of proteins in parallel”, he added.
The PLA and PEA tests minimise background noise, having a higher specificity and a valuable ability to measure multiple proteins simultaneously. This allows researchers to reveal diseases before symptoms are present, allowing early intervention. Additionally, the discovery that each person has a unique protein fingerprint has opened the door for highly personalised medicine in the future.
Thanks to the improved screening, diagnostics and treatment offered by proteomics, patients suffering illnesses such as cancer, malaria, tuberculosis and multiple sclerosis can have significantly greater chances of receiving effective treatment. "While genetics is predictive and can reveal predisposition to some diseases even before we are born, it doesn't allow you to follow the course of the illnesses. By contrast, proteins can often reveal the inception and the variable course of a disease, as well as responses to therapy”, Landegren pointed out.
Building an industry
Landegren, together with Fredriksson and a team of allies, founded the company Olink AB to take advantage of their discoveries. Application of the inventions to liquid biopsies, such as plasma and serum, were spun out to a company of its own, Olink Proteomics. Now, with a library of over 6,000 validated protein biomarker targets, Olink Proteomics has become a leader in its field, and in October 2023, multinational company Thermo Fisher Scientific announced its plans to purchase the company for EUR 2.84 billion.
The two Swedish inventors have been named one of three finalists in the ‘Industry’ category for this year’s European Inventor Award, recognising outstanding inventors with inventions patented in Europe. The other finalists in this category are Icelandic Fertram Sigurjonsson for developing a biotech-derived wound healing product using fish skin and the team of Fiorenzo Dioni from Italy and Richard Oberle from Germany for their advancements in aluminium casting technology that reduces carbon emissions in automotive manufacturing. The EPO will announce the winners of the different categories during a ceremony livestreamed here from Malta on 9 July 2024. In addition, the EPO will reveal the Popular Prize winner, chosen by online public vote. Voting will remain open until the day of the ceremony.
Find more information about the invention’s impact, the technology and the inventors’ stories here.
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About the European Inventor Award
The European Inventor Award is one of Europe's most prestigious innovation prizes. Launched by the EPO in 2006, the award honours individuals and teams, who have come up with solutions to some of the biggest challenges of our time. The European Inventor Award jury consists of inventors who are all former finalists. To judge proposals, the independent panel draws on their wealth of technical, business, and intellectual property expertise. In 2024, the jury is chaired by Wolfgang M. Heckl. All inventors must have been granted a European patent for their invention. Read more here on the various categories, prizes, selection criteria and livestream ceremony to be held on 9 July in Malta.
About the EPO
With 6,300 staff members, the European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the largest public service institutions in Europe. Headquartered in Munich with offices in Berlin, Brussels, The Hague and Vienna, the EPO was founded with the aim of strengthening co-operation on patents in Europe. Through the EPO's centralised patent granting procedure, inventors are able to obtain high-quality patent protection in up to 45 countries, covering a market of some 700 million people. The EPO is also the world's leading authority in patent information and patent searching.