Entrepreneurial Activities
The Applied Physics Research Group is continually looking out for routes to commercialise our research. To date the group, lead by Prof Shvets, has a very impressive record of research commercialisation. Prof Shvets has successfully spun out two campus companies to date and is currently working towards spinning out another. All the companies are based on research performed in the group. To ensure independence of the group's campus companies once a company is spun out all related research within the Applied Physics Research Group ceases. This ensure there are no conflicts of interest between the company and the research group and that each is an independent entity in their own right.
In recognition of his entrepreneurial activities Prof Shvets was awarded the Trinity College Dublin Academic Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 2005/06.
Prof Shvets' first campus company was Deerac Fluidics (also trading as Allegro Technologies). This company was
subsequently taken over by Labcyte in 2008. Today the Labcyte Europe Limited Managing
Director is Dr Jurgen Osing, a former student of Prof Shvets' and one of the founding members of Deerac Fluidics.
Prof Shvets' second campus company is Cellix Ltd, which operates in the medical
devices sphere. It is currently located at the Trinity Centre for Health Science in St James's Hospital. Both the CEO,
Vivienne Williams, and the COO, D'mitri Kashanin, are former students of Prof Shvets. Specifically, Cellix aprovide
Microfluidic systems for drug discovery and cellular diagnostics.
Prof Shvets' current commercialisation activities are centred around Miravex, his latest spin out company. Miravex is the successful culmination of research of a 3D imaging device that can measure skin damage and has both cosmetic and dermatological applications. The device has the singular advantage over similar competitors in that it is hand-held and portable. Dr Roman Kantor and Dr Guido Mariotto, both previously of the Applied Physics Research Group, worked with Prof Shvets on the project.
On 20 November 2009 Prof Shvets was presented with the Best In Class Award during the 2009 Enterprise Ireland Industrial Technologies Awards. This award was in recognition for his research that lead to the formation of Miravex. The Best in Class award is made annually to a researcher who has shown both scientific excellence and an awareness of industry needs. The award not only stresses innovation of technology itself but also application, commercialisation and market potential and in making their decision, the judges also examined both licence and promotional efforts made. Professor Shvets was selected as the overall winner from a list of ten researchers who had successfully commercialised their research in the past year.
