INNOVATIVE GEL COMPANY SOLVES A RANGE OF PROBLEMS

A Bradford-based company has developed a revolutionary hydrogel that can be applied to a wide range of life sciences.

The company AGT Sciences is one of five short listed bio-companies that will be presenting their research and its associated commercial potential during a special Technology Showcase at this year’s White Rose Bioscience Forum to be held in York next week. The Technology Showcase is run by Connect Yorkshire, the organisation which primes technology companies for growth, and gives the brightest new bioscience talent from the region the chance to vie for a £2,000 award, sponsored by Bioscience York.

AGT Sciences was established in January 2005 as a subsidiary of Advanced Gel Technology Limited – a spin-out company from Bradford University formed to explore the commercial opportunities of a novel hydrogel.

The gel can be formulated as a delivery vehicle for colloidal silver, to form an antibacterial dressing which has enhanced activity against the bacteria that commonly infect wounds. One of these, MRSA, is responsible for killing around 3000 people in the UK every year and is extremely difficult to treat due to its resistant to standard antibiotic treatment.

The antibacterial dressing utilises the antimicrobial properties of silver which kills bacteria via multiply modes and in a different way to antibiotics, offering an alterative treatment for infection. Current in vitro studies suggest that the dressing will be more effective than antibiotics at fighting drug resistant infection; thus helping to prevent the build up of further resistance.

The novel gel also has exceptional structural properties which lend themselves to commercial exploitation. The strength of the hydrogel lies in the strong chemical cross-linking of water soluble polymers, to form a 3D ‘cage’, holding in the gel’s main ingredient - water. The material characteristics of the gel can be be changed from fluid through to an elastic solid by varying the cross-linking density. The properties of the gel allow incorporation of a wide range of water soluble and insoluble materials and additionally the gel has the ability support a variety of living cells and bacteria.

AGT Science’s CEO Gordon Feather explained: “Our work encompasses a wide range of life science applications – we are developing products to promote faster healing of chronic wounds, and the delivery of a range of drugs in a number of therapeutic areas”.

The company recently won the ‘Recognition of Advancement’ award at the third Annual Yorkshire Bioscience awards, which recognises the rapid progress of the company since being established in 2005.

Gordon Feather added: “We are presenting at the Bioscience Forum to secure funding for our existing products and to develop new concepts”. Four other companies are presenting at the Forum during the Technology Showcase. They are: Nature’s Laboratory, which has formulated a method of standardising highly complex natural products for medicinal use, Josephine Bunch from the University of Sheffield, who will deliver a presentation about her latest research in the bimolecular mass spectrometry field, Paraytec, which has patented analytical detection technology that has a range of applications in industry and research,

and Scensive Technologies, which has developed a non-invasive, multi-application diagnostic tool for the medical industry. The sixth Annual White Rose Bioscience Forum runs from 31 October – 1 November at the Central Science Laboratory, York.

The Technology Showcase award will be presented to the most promising business proposition by Gareth Lloyd-Jones of Bioscience York, on Wednesday 1 November.