The Rudolf Sallinger Fund awards early-stage commercialization ideas based on state-of-the-art research with the S&B Award. With his Start-Up company The Human Touch, Johannes Hackethal made it among the top 10. The winner will be awarded with € 20,000 as well as mentoring services and other support offers for their commercialization idea. All projects placed 2-10 will receive mentoring services and other support offers for their commercialization idea.
Voting is possible until Monday, October 5, 12:00 at derbrutkasten.com!
“3R – Reduce, Refine and Replace animal materials in science!“ is what the team around Dr. Johannes Hackethal had in mind when developing a method to extract human extracellular matrix (ECM) out of placenta. Their aim is to bring higher precision into tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Human placenta has great bioactive potential and is easily accessible without causing any additional discomfort to donors. The ECM influences the cells via a combination of spatial, chemical and mechanical cues and is therefore a crucial factor for better quality, effectiveness and safety for cell culture research.
The Human Touch produces ECM components from the human placenta – the so-called hPS (human placenta substrate) – to be offered to cell culture researchers, companies as well as pharmaceutical manufacturers as an alternative to animal material-based products.