2024 Semmelweis Innovation Awards presented

A faster and more accurate method for heart CT scan, a potential cure for Huntington’s disease with a commercially available drug, and an eye drop for rapid recovery following surgery: These are the discoveries for which researchers were recognized with the 2024 Semmelweis Innovation Awards. Their market utilization is to be facilitated by a cooperation agreement between the university and the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office, signed at the award ceremony by Rector Dr. Béla Merkely and President Szabolcs Farkas.

“Innovation has a special significance for Semmelweis Citizens, as we feel obliged by the spiritual heritage of our university’s namesake. We are also aware that even if we have a discovery, we may have to fight for our truth or its implementation in practice,” said Dr. Béla Merkely, Rector of Semmelweis University, at the Semmelweis Innovation Awards ceremony.

Today is a double celebration, as in addition to acknowledging our researchers’ outstanding achievements in health innovation, we are also signing a cooperation agreement with the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office to ensure that our innovations can move forward to fruition as quickly and efficiently as possible. – Dr. Béla Merkely

The closer cooperation ensured by the agreement will allow research results to be patented more quickly through the Patent Fast-Track service of the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office (SZTNH), increasing research value and facilitating collaboration with the industry. “The agreement and the fast-track procedure will also boost Semmelweis University’s competitiveness; I am confident that it will create a unique opportunity for our current and future awardees and the entire university research community alike to protect intellectual property,” Dr. Béla Merkely emphasized.

Cooperation with universities is of particular importance to SZTNH, as President Szabolcs Farkas emphasized in his welcome speech. This led them to assess the intellectual property management and utilization practices of Hungarian universities in 2024. As a result, the office intends to assist universities in the innovation process by finding solutions to the problems identified, such as the lack of experts in patent management, the scarcity of financial resources, or the pressure on researchers to publish, which may counteract their motivation to utilize. The president referenced the European Patent Office’s (EPO) 2024 survey on the patenting activities of European universities, according to which between 2000 and 2020, the top 5 university applicants in Hungary filed 1,007 patent applications with the EPO, 217 of which were attributable to Semmelweis University.

This can be further enhanced by the SZTNH Patent Fast-Track service, the president noted. He also reminded researchers that under Hungarian law, the filing of a patent protection had to precede its publication, but the application could be filed up to one day before the publication, furthermore, the publication would be accepted as a patent application. SZTNH then conducts a novelty search and prepares a report on patentability; it also offers a consultation service to facilitate decisions on the utilizability of the novelty or invention.

The scientific career of researchers and PhD students is based not only on publications but also on patents. The protection and market entry of the results is essential for both the university and the national economy, stressed Szabolcs Farkas.

The Semmelweis Innovation Awards are presented annually to recognize the research, development, and innovation activities of researchers, PhD, and Students’ Scientific Conference (TDK) students who have achieved new scientific results or developed innovative solutions in the course of their research activities affiliated with the university. This year, no prize was awarded in the TDK category, but two innovative PhD theses were recognized instead.

One of the recipients of the Most Innovative PhD Thesis award, Dr. Lili Száraz, gave a presentation entitled “Tissue replacement and post-mortem cardiac CT examination methodology”, in which she described the steps that led to her findings, currently patent-pending, which have the potential to significantly advance the development of cardiac CT machines in the future. Her research aimed at modeling coronary plaques for developing and calibrating cardiac CT machines, thus providing a solution to replace human involvement in testing machines under development. Her research has found a way to use organs provided by the Department of Pathology and Experimental Cancer Research to recreate the conditions of a living patient during post-mortem CT scans.

The other winner of the Most Innovative PhD Thesis category, Kinga Vörös, a PhD student in chemical engineering at the Institute of Translational Medicine, is bringing medicine closer to curing Huntington’s disease. In her talk entitled “Testing the preclinical efficacy of felodipine in an induced neuronal model”, she pointed out that many clinical trials were underway worldwide to treat the currently incurable neurodegenerative disease, however, success rates were low, presumably because preclinical studies were conducted in animal models that do not adequately model the complexity of the human brain and the aging process. Felodipine is a medication for high blood pressure, which was introduced to the market in the 1980s. In a joint study with the University of Cambridge, it was administered to Huntington’s disease patients for a year at different concentrations. The induced neuronal models can be used to model several neurodegenerative diseases: In the case of Huntington’s disease, they can help select patients for successful clinical trials, and the award-winning research also demonstrated that felodipine can be used as a new treatment for a specific cohort of patients, concluded Kinga Vörös.

The prize in the Most Innovative Research Work category was presented to Dr. György Tibor Balogh, Head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry; Dr. Zoltán Zsolt Nagy, Director of the Department of Ophthalmology; Assistant Professor Dr. Ágnes Ildikó Takács and Dr. Anita Csorba, resident at the department. A collaboration between ophthalmologists and pharmacists has resulted in a drug formulation that promotes and accelerates corneal wound healing after surgery, preventing blurred vision and dioptric regression after photorefractive surgery. Patients can recover with fewer complications in a shorter time thanks to the new formulation of eye drops, summarized Dr. Zoltán Zsolt Nagy the clinical significance of the discovery, adding that about one million patients per year underwent eye surgeries worldwide which could be treated with the product. The research has resulted in a cost-effective eye drop suitable for home use. A patent application was filed in 2022; the national phase has been completed, international protection is underway, and an ethical clearance application has been filed to continue the research. They are currently searching for an industrial partner for further utilization.