Innovation round-up: Future of Work | NatureMetrics funding | breast cancer discovery

Future of Work research unit set up, NatureMetrics secured funding boost and major discovery made in the treatment of breast cancer.

University of Surrey launches Future of Work Research Centre

The University of Surrey's new Future of Work Research Centre is to explore how rapidly evolving technology is impacting the workplace and delve into the effects of hybrid working on productivity, teamwork, and value creation.

The new Research Centre will focus on people management and job quality in a rapidly changing working environment following on from the UK Government's announcement that it is to conduct its own Future of Work Review headed by MP Matt Warman.

NatureMetrics secures £11.8m funding to enhance nature data measurement

Naturemetrics , based at Surrey Research Park, plans to use the funding to build a series of new digital products to enable its customers to set and monitor long-term targets on nature whilst accelerating its expansion into international markets.

The company already runs two eDNA labs in the UK and Canada, which have delivered data from soil, freshwater and marine samples on species from bacteria to blue whales. To date, they have served more than 450 clients across the renewable energy, infrastructure, marine water and banking sectors.

The new investment will enable the team to combine ecological statistics, machine learning and data visualisation to give improved decision-making power to clients in a wide range of sectors critical to a nature-positive economy.

The funding round was led by urban sustainability-focused VC fund 2150 with participation from Ananda Impact Ventures, SWEN Capital Partners’ Blue Ocean and BNP Paribas Solar Impulse Venture Fund and follow-on from Systemiq Capital.

‘Crown-like structures’ found on breast tumours of overweight patients

A new study from the University of Southampton has discovered that ‘crown-like structures’ surrounding breast tumours in overweight and obese patients could hinder their response to therapy.

The findings of this study could potentially be used to improve personalised treatment for patients with HER2 positive over expressed breast cancer.

The research team, led by Professors Stephen Beers, Ramsey Cutress and Dr Charles Birts, assessed samples from a group of HER2 positive breast cancer patients to investigate the link between high BMI and the formation of crown-like structures, and the subsequent effect of these on how patients responded to therapy with a drug called trastuzumab (Herceptin®).

The research team are now looking at ways to change the behaviour of these crown-like structures to improve responses to breast cancer therapy.

Thames Valley AI Hub to host computer vision workshop

The Thames Valley AI Hub is hosting a workshop aimed at exploring how computer vision can help solve real world problems.

The event will be held in June 16 from 10am to 4pm in the Meadow Suite at Park House on the University of Reading's Whiteknights Campus.

The organisers are looking for submissions of problems that could be solved through the use of computer analysis particularly those which focus on the application of AI methods for image classification.

Armalytix selected as provider for UK Government's MyIdentity scheme

Armalytix has been selected to be a provider for the government backed MyIdentity scheme.

The scheme has been created to help create a digital record of identification and source of funds and brings together trusted UK identity providers who are working to be certified based on government standards to make home buying and selling a quicker and more secure process for consumers.

With property and mortgage fraud increasing exponentially during the pandemic, and the Land Registry paying out £3.5million in compensation for fraud related cases in 2021 alone, up from £2million in 2020, the UK government has recognised the need to accelerate the digitalisation of identity checks to help combat this.