Q&A with Althea shortlisted candidate Ravneet Bhuller

Althea shortlisted candidate Ravneet Bhuller talks about coming up with new ideas and the need for business and research to work together.

Can you tell me a little about how you came up with the idea and what convinced you that there was real business potential there?

I being a PhD student in the Faculty of Medicine/Life Sciences and a qualified veterinarian, when I heard about the Althea-Imperial competition in Oct, 2014, I thought to develop a project idea in the field of medicine/veterinary along with my team member Leon Leanse, who is another PhD student in the Medicine Faculty. We wanted to develop something that has wider application worldwide and is innovative in the field of Medicine. We both researched a lot on internet to find out something that has huge future potential. This online research helped us to identify that there is a great demand of novel drug delivery system, especially for vaccine delivery, as current methods are expensive, painful and some of them are ineffective. Millions of children (under-5) die every year globally, especially in developing countries, due to vaccine-preventable diseases. A lot of these children (~51%) die as they cannot receive vaccination due to expensive immunisation process. As a result, we planned to develop a novel vaccine delivery system which will not only reduce the mass immunisation cost by ~60% and reduce the under-5 deaths significantly, but also test whether the vaccine has worked. There is no doubt that there is a real business potential in this idea. This novel and effective mass immunisation method will earn revenue in billions (dollars) per year once it is adopted globally by UNICEF and nationally by governments. 

It is a brilliant thing for a scientist to think from business point of view as this will not only add scientific value to the system but will also help the scientists to earn money. Job competition in the field of research is tough. If scientists can hook into the business world, it will help them to stand on their own feet, without worrying for jobs.

How did it feel to be shortlisted and how have you found the whole process?

We both are delighted to be shortlisted. We have worked very hard to develop this project from the scratch and thus, we feel honoured to be shortlisted. The whole process is amazing as it provides great opportunities to expand your network, especially with the guest speakers who are experienced entrepreneur women.