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Congratulations to the LSQ members named among the nation’s 100 leading innovators in The Australian’s 2024 Top 100 Innovators List.
Farzaneh Ahmadi
Farzaneh was recognised as founder ofBrisbane-based Laronix, which produces a bionic voice box that presents a solution for patients who have exhausted all other options to regain their voice after their larynx has been removed due to laryngeal cancer.
Laronix now has offices in New York and has so far raised $4 million from government grants and investors.
Professor John Fraser, Kirsty Short and Arutha Kulasinghe
Professor John Frazer, Associate Professor Kirsty Short and Associate Professor Arutha Kulasinghe have been recognised as project leads of the “back to the future” project at The University of Queensland (UQ).
This Brisbane research project that began during the COVID-19 pandemic based on century-old human tissue (from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic) has expanded into world-leading research on how to manage the treatment of cancers.
Dr Daniel Timms
Brisbane biomedical engineer Dr Timms has been recognised as the inventor and founder of BiVACOR’s Total Artificial Heart (TAH).
Together with his father Gary, who was dying of heart failure, Dr Timms developed what could become the world’s first permanent artificial heart replacement. It was trialled successfully in Texas in early July, and it received $50m in funding from the Australian Government this year, while the Medical Research Future Fund has backed a trial in Australian patients.
David Hoey
David Hoey was recognised as president and CEO of biotech company Vaxxas, a UQ spinout that is developing a high-density patch that aims to do away with needle vaccinations.
These one-square-centimetre patches can eliminate or significantly reduce the need for vaccine refrigeration during storage and transportation, thereby easing the logistics burden of maintaining the “cold chain” required by conventional vaccines.
David Hoey says this technology eliminates the need for vaccine refrigeration during storage and transportation, allowing vaccines to be distributed in low- and middle-income countries, Vaxxas is collaborating with leading global organisations, including the World Health Organisation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Dr Michelle Deaker
Dr Deaker was recognised as the founding partner of OneVentures.
OneVentures is a later-stage venture capital firm specialising in scaling healthcare and technology sector companies by providing equity and credit funding.
It focuses on financing transformative technology companies and supporting healthcare and biotech innovations.
With $900m in funds under management, OneVentures has already invested in Vaxxas and ImmVirX, a clinical stage oncology company developing powerful cancer immunotherapy combinations.
