In 2021, the Venture Fellowship program of the University of Bern was established with the goal to promote the transfer of knowledge and novel technologies into economy and society. The first cohort of entrepreneurial scientists will finish their fellowship in the next couple of months. First successes have already been recorded: The spinoff project Enzoxa by Prof. Christelle Robert and Matheus Notter has just won first place in the Stage-Up competition. Felix Baier, who came third in the Stage-Up, has been able to raise funding of around CHF 800,000 with the project Caldre. And Florence von Gunten has co-founded the company YLAH AG, won a BRIDGE Proof-of-Concept Grant and brought the first private investors on board. 

In fall 2022 the second round was announced and out of twelve applications received, the jury was able to support four more promising projects. 

Artificial Intelligence for Agriculture 

Fabian Guignard – currently postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and Actuarial Science – is developing a tool based on artificial intelligence for farmers. It allows them to choose the optimal variety of winter wheat for their fields. While the varietal recommendations are currently the same for every farmer, the proposed innovation will allow for personalized recommendations that take local conditions, such as the weather, into account. This should help to improve the yield and quality of the harvest. The fellowship project is based on over a year of research conducted at the University of Bern in collaboration with Agroscope and with the support of the Federal Office for Agriculture, the industry organization swiss granum, as well as various private partner organizations. 

Precision Oncology 

Organ-on-chip technologies aim to mimic complex microenvironments, to which cells are exposed, in laboratory settings. Using an innovative tumor-on-chip technology of a new generation of in vitro models, Soheila Zeinali creates a personalized microenvironment that allows testing various drugs and drug dosages on individual tumor patient samples. This technology aims to support precision oncology in determining the most effective treatment for each patient individually. Zeinali's project is based at the ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research, from which already successful start-up companies have emerged. 

New Therapy for Corneal Diseases 

Miguel Ariza is the second Venture Fellow from the ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research. He is proposing a novel treatment for Keratoconus – a progressive disease that leads to thinning of the cornea and in the worst case to blindness. In collaboration with Philippe Büchler, Head of the Computational Bioengineering research group, Ariza is designing a novel minimally invasive treatment method to treat corneal refractive errors. To achieve this, he aims to develop a personalized biomechanical approach to strengthen the cornea. 

Therapy for Liver Cancer 

Nicolas Melin, previously Postdoc at the Department of Visceral Surgery and Medicine at the Inselspital University Hospital Bern and the University of Bern, addresses the limited efficacy of current treatments against hepatocellular carcinomas. These account for more than 80 percent of primary liver cancers worldwide. These tumors are highly aggressive, with a five-year survival rate of less than ten percent. The new approach proposed by Melin aims to significantly enhance the effectiveness of current immunotherapies, which can be highly burdensome for patients, and thereby improve their survival chances.