MDRI PhD candidates Laura Gell and Mark Gardner, and Research Associate Dr Maged Awadalla, recently attended the International Summer School on Technology Transfer in Life Sciences at the elite Technische Universität Dresden.

As 3 of only 22 young researchers worldwide to be invited to attend the event, Maged, Laura and Mark were selected on their research skills and motivation, as well as the strength of their projects.

The summer school aims to provide participants with the skills and knowledge to take their PhD project and transform it into a commercial enterprise.

Mark Gardner, who is collaborating with ResMed to develop a heart rate monitoring system for the CPAP device used to a sleep apnoea device, gained a lot from the experience.

“Being selected for the TU Dresden Summer School gave me the chance to understand aspects of commercialisation beyond research,” he says.

“It was a great networking opportunity, and gives me better knowledge to move into industry once my PhD is complete.”

Laura Gell is also working on sleep apnoea, using her physics and engineering background to develop new tools to measure, diagnose and hopefully treat obstructive sleep apnoea.

Dr Maged Awadalla, by contrast, is working on developing user-friendly software that quantifies lung disease intensity in CT scans. The software is more accurate than other methods, and can recommend the most effective therapeutic aerosols to target the area of lung disease.

Click here to learn more about the TU Dresden’s International Summer School on Technology Transfer in Life Sciences.