Project description
New modular microfluidic platform could revolutionise disease diagnosis and treatment
Microfluidics, the precise control and manipulation of small amounts of fluids in the range of microlitres to picolitres, is playing an increasingly important role in medicine and chemistry. The EU-funded memetis project is designing modular fluidic platforms using miniature valves made from shape memory alloys. This development allows processes that are normally carried out in a lab to be performed at the point of care. The miniaturised fluidic chips enhance diagnostic efficiency and speed while reducing sample and reagent volumes. Lying at the intersection of engineering, physics, chemistry, information technology and biotechnology, memetis can revolutionise the way patients are diagnosed, monitored and treated.
Objective
memetis is an award-winning innovative SME, spin-off from Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT) / Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) that designs modular fluidic platforms using Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) miniature valves for user specific needs. It enables the realization of unprecedented fluidic platforms in terms of outer dimensions, functionality, integration density and power consumption. Uses of the technology range from laboratory based tools to commercial applications like medical diagnostics.
Processes which are normally carried out in a lab can be miniaturized on a single chip and performed at the Point of Care/ Point of Need to enhance analysis, diagnostic efficiency and speed while reducing sample and reagent volumes. At the intersection of engineering, physics, chemistry, information technology, and biotechnology, memetis can revolutionize the way patients are diagnosed, monitored and treated. This solution has high disruptive potential and can be implemented across Europe and beyond to reach a large worldwide market.
Prototypes of various SMA miniature valves are already available. In the past year several pilot customers acquired paid developments and application-specific projects were transferred to series production (30,000 – 50,000 pieces). Currently, incoming 2018 orders are of low 6-digits providing a solid basis to achieve this year's turnover objective.
Our traction has already been substantial. Besides the EXIST Research Transfer Phase I grant, we have attracted equity investments and we have received the following awards: 1st place KIT Venture Fest Gründerpitch (Aug 2016), 1st place Elevator Pitch Baden-Württemberg (Jun 2017), Winner WECONOMY (Jun 2017), Init Innovation Prize Cyber Champions Award (Aug 2017), 2nd place CyberOne Hightech Award (Oct 2017) & 4th place at VC Pitch BW (Feb 2018). Further, we have qualified for the 2nd round of the CoHMed Connected Health
application process.
Fields of science
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
76185 Karlsruhe
Germany
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.