The Murdoch Westscheme Enterprise Partnership (MWEP) has recently funded a new avian flu surveillance project, based upon patented technology to discriminate between birds vaccinated with avian flu and those naturally infected with the disease.
The inability of current technologies to differentiate vaccinated from infectious birds has been identified by WHO, FAO and OIE as the single greatest risk in containing the disease. If field trials are successful, our vaccination tracking technology will be fast-tracked into the market.
This is one of the most recent projects approved for investment by MWEP, a partnership between Murdoch University and Westscheme, WA’s largest non-government superannuation fund, formed in 2004 to provide early stage funding for commercially exciting technologies developed by Murdoch and other WA researchers.
“MWEP identifies unmet market opportunities and develops, funds and manages cost and time effective research and development programs to exploit these opportunities,” MWEP Investment Manager Dr Howard Carr said.
“MWEP identifies unmet market opportunities and develops, funds and manages cost and time effective research and development programs to exploit these opportunities.”
Dr Howard Carr“It is our belief that the combination of a $10m pool of institutional investor funds, an efficient screening, approval and management process and the under-recognised worldleading research conducted in WA will deliver significant financial and public good benefits to the MWEP partners as well as the WA economy.”
Other MWEP-funded projects designed to diversify and strengthen the WA economy include: A family of low impact biocides extracted from native WA plants, with the potential to replace toxic chemicals such as tributylin (TBT) in marine anti-fouling paints and control algal blooms in waterways without harmful side effects.
A diagnostic kit for Cryptosporidium and Giardia in water, animals and humans. Accurate and timely detection of these pathogens is urgently required by water authorities, pathologists and farmers around the world. Contamination of Sydney and Millwaukee (USA) water supplies has already cost local economies tens of millions of dollars.
Necrotrophic fungi cause millions of dollars in crop losses annually, but no effective control agent exists. The MWEP project aims to develop a revolutionary control mechanism for these pathogens by screening natural products for novel antifungal compounds.
In less than two years, the MWEP team has evaluated more than 60 proposals. Eleven have been approved for funding, nine of which remain active, an enviable record for a startup investment fund.
