Celosia Therapeutics is dedicated to delivering gene therapies for devastating neurodegenerative conditions such as motor neurone disease (MND) to patients within the next decade.

The company, launched with more than $2 million in seed funding from Macquarie University, has exclusive access to a portfolio of patents for advanced gene therapies developed by Professor Lars Ittner, Professor Roger Chung and their research teams.

Celosia Therapeutics Chief Executive Officer, Dr Brenton Hamdorf, said the company will begin by developing a gene therapy to treat MND that has shown great promise in laboratory testing.

“We aim to start clinical trials of this treatment within five years, but this is only the first of the exciting discoveries we have at our disposal, just waiting to be developed for use by patients,” Dr Hamdorf said.

“We will seek further funding in 2023 to develop gene therapy treatments with enormous potential to provide life-changing benefits for motor neurone and other neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s Disease and Dravet Syndrome, a severe form of drug-resistant childhood epilepsy that can cause hundreds of seizures a day.

“Our partnership with Macquarie University is key to bringing these treatments from the lab to the bedside. It extends beyond that of an investor by providing us with vital access to critical research capabilities, infrastructure, clinical expertise and patients who are waiting for these new treatment options.”

Vice-Chancellor Professor S Bruce Dowton said this new endeavour showcases the unique role universities can play in facilitating the translation of groundbreaking academic research for the benefit of patients around the world.

“Macquarie is leading by example in its support of university commercialisation by proactively backing innovative opportunities such as this,” Professor Dowton said.

“We are proud to support Celosia Therapeutics, and we look forward to seeing what it will achieve in the future.”

Celosia Therapeutics is a member of the Macquarie University Incubator community, which supports more than 40 companies ranging from idea stage to scaleup.

The Macquarie Incubator is designed to drive the development of sustainable, scalable and investable companies from within our community of researchers, students and alumni—as well as from the wider community.

Last year, Macquarie Incubator companies attracted more than $44 million in external funding and created nearly 200 jobs.

Director of Incubation and Entrepreneurship, Melissa Ryan, said there is an emerging movement in Australia towards an innovation economy.

“The innovation economy values ideas as the new resource boom,” Ms Ryan said.

“We believe the key to unlocking innovation is via entrepreneurial pathways, so we’re thrilled to support Celosia Therapeutics’ transformation into a thriving commercial success.”

Meet the panellists:

– Christopher Butlin, Acting Director Assessment and Operations at Defence Innovation Hub
– Daniel Pace, former member of the ADF and co-founder of INVICTA Prospects Group
– Edmond Sorich, Director of GLIA Diagnostics Pty Ltd
– Tim Doyle, Associate Professor & Director of Bachelor of Exercise and Sports Science at Macquarie University

Moderated by Melissa Ryan, Director Incubation and Entrepreneurship at Macquarie University Incubator.

This event will be on October 20, 12pm in-person at the Incubator.

Register today.

Morgan manages a diverse team responsible for the growth of Macquarie’s innovation ecosystem. Opening in 2017, the Incubator helps start-ups to scale their businesses, researchers to refine their entrepreneurial ideas and students to develop the skills they need to launch their own initiative.

Morgan’s main interest is in helping people to really refine how their value proposition translates for their customer in the immediate, and over the longer term for direct revenue growth. In simple terms, ‘how do you get money without grants or investors?’

Working in the start-up development space is something that’s only come about for Morgan in the last couple of years. Most of his career has been spent developing strategic partnerships between the university and corporate sectors. Before joining Macquarie in early 2021, Morgan held senior B2B sales and consulting roles at Deakin University and Western Sydney University, respectively, as well as working at a start-up himself.

Fascinated by the complexity of challenges and opportunities for Australian Universities operating in the modern market, Morgan is currently undertaking a Master of Research with a research topic on understanding Organisational Agility in Australian Universities.

1. Something you’d like staff to know about

This is a work-related story, but for pretext:

I fought the 2019-2020 bushfires in NSW as a member of various RFS strike teams and emergency response teams. We worked tirelessly as a team to defend people’s houses, livelihoods and their lives. It was one of the toughest periods of my life and took so much out of me physically. But I recently came to understand that the fires affected me emotionally as well. The last few months I have noticed the thoughts of upsetting things I have seen on fire calls coming back into my mind, and felt at time an anxiety building when least expected. Perhaps this is triggered by the floods, or the conflict in Ukraine or maybe something else. Regardless of the trigger I’ve realised that Post Traumatic Stress is a normal thing for a volunteer fire fighter, but we must do more as a society to equip volunteers with the tools to process traumatic events.

So here is where work comes in:
Out of nowhere I had a panic attack at Macquarie, MCing an event. I couldn’t believe it as public speaking has been such a regular part of my work. I was embarrassed. But I was honest about it with everyone at the event. And what I experienced after that amazed me. Not one person gave me an awkward glance. No one laughed at me. But instead, people came up to me one after the other and shared their stories of having panic attacks. One person (a successful start-up founder I know well), embraced and high-fived me, exclaiming “Welcome to the club!” before giving me his tips on managing panic attacks. I am so grateful for his attitude, and for all the other amazing people in that room that were so open about their own struggles.

The bottom line is that no matter who you are or what you do at Macquarie, if you ever feel panic, anxiety, depression or any other completely normal human experience, this is a place you can be open about it because people here truly care and want to help. And you might be surprised at how normal these feelings are.

2. Something you feel proud of
This will probably sound silly, but I feel proudest of myself when I feel like I’ve helped someone else grow or develop in some way. When I see them put in the work to go to the next level and they achieve the success they wanted, I secretly get a buzz out of it as well.

3. What you need to do your best work
I do my best work when there is a clear overarching vision and strategy to align the work to; something to measure outcomes against. If this does not exist, then I do my best to help create that vision so goals can be achieved.

4. The coolest bit of equipment you use in your work, and what it does
Probably LinkedIn. A few years back LinkedIn asked me to give a presentation to a group of their clients on how to use the platform to generate partnerships and sales as I was considered a ‘power user’ of the LinkedIn sales platform. The way that data can be manipulated and used to generate insights and motivate activity is something most people are not aware of but is incredibly powerful and yes, I would say cool!

5. Something you’ve read recently that has had an impact on you
The Witcher books. I am up to the last one in the series. Please note the books are considerably better than the Netflix show. So if you have enjoyed the show, I can highly recommend you get into books!

6. A favourite photo from your camera roll

This is me and my daughter Olive at a recent football game. Going to the footy with my dad is one of my fondest memories I have growing up and one of the things with which we’ve bonded over the years. No matter what was going on in our lives we always found a way to get together at the footy, chew the fat, and boo the other team. It is amazing to be able to keep this tradition alive with Olive.

7. The first person you go to for advice (and why)
My wife, Cherie, because she is the smartest, strongest and most inspiring person I have ever met. She also never sugar-coats anything and annoyingly always plays devil’s advocate, so she forces me to be less self-centred and think about others in any situation.

For my fashion advice, I go to my 8-year-old daughter Olive because she knows what’s cool

8. A website or app you can’t live without (and why)
Wordle. I have an ongoing battle with my mate, Simon, who I have known since high school. Each day we send each other our Wordle scores in a never-ending quest to be the better Wordler. We have now also have a daily Quordle (where you do four wordles simultaneously) and Framed (Wordle but with movie stills to guess the movie title). So yeah, I’m an addict.

9. Where you live and what you like about living there
I live in Kurrajong so I regularly go for bush walks in the Blue Mountains National Park. We have an amazing community and produce the best apples and honey in Australia (in my humble opinion!)

10. A personal quality you value in others
I value when people are genuine, open and honest. This comes in lots of forms. It might mean putting your hand up when a mistake is made and owning it and seeing the opportunity to learn from it, or supporting a colleague when you see they need help. I have learnt through my career that the only way to build strong partnerships or strong collaborations, is to first build strong trust. Trust is the foundation to everything. And trust starts with honesty.

In 2021, 17 researchers and HDR candidates successfully participated in the program. Applications are now open for the next intake which starts on 14 June.

What you need to apply:

• A research idea you think may have commercial, people, or planet impact
• Willingness to commit to the program and an open and learner mindset
• Be a current researcher or HDR candidate at Macquarie University
• Interested in securing further funding for commercialising your research or idea

To receive more information about the program, please contact innovation@mq.edu.au

Co-developed by the Incubator and the Office of Commercialisation and Innovation, the MQ Researchers IMPACT Program will teach researchers and HDR candidates how to actively assess the path of their research to commercialisation and real-world impact.

Anna says the seven-week program provides an interactive, practical and cohort-based approach that takes researchers through the process of customer discovery, product market fit and the University’s ‘Impact Canvas‘ tool.

“Positive feedback about the Impact Canvas – which helps people clarify their research to ensure there is an end-user and likely impactful outcome – has been overwhelming,” she says. “It has been used widely across all Faculties, in ECR training, Centre of Excellence focus groups, researchers individually, the Incubator and the Office of Commercialisation and Innovation.”

“However, we did identify a knowledge gap around how to talk about ideas to appreciate the needs and desires of end-users without jeopardising competitive advantage or intellectual property (IP) position. Hence, a course about how to conduct Customer Discovery, articulate your value proposition, learning about entrepreneurship.”

Anna has been helping Macquarie researchers identify, evaluate and commercialise their IP for five years, and in this time she has noticed attitudes towards research commercialisation changing.

“I have seen that our culture and values around IP and commercialisation have moved slowly in the positive direction,” she says.  “My team and I are passionate about helping turn ideas into reality and I have always preached that pitching research, offering a value proposition to donors and funding bodies, will result in deals being closed.  We’ve helped researchers and industry with many successes, and we are now seeing referrals from past clients.

She says the current operating environment makes it a great time for researchers to explore their impact potential.

“The needle of the impact dial has a huge potential to be positively moved now with the opportunities we have under COVID-19, a new Chancellor who is also passionate about diversifying our income and an Australia that wants to be more sustainable around manufacturing and the security and wellbeing of our citizens.”

After completion of the Researchers IMPACT program,  participants will have learned new skills to be able to view their research through the lenses of their customers and investors and make evidence-based decisions about their research, pursuing the best commercialisation pathway for maximum impact.

Interested applicants will need to submit their Expression of Interest by 27 September, with the program set to commence in October.

As the Macquarie University Incubator’s new Expert-in-Residence, Karen brings a valuable wealth of expertise from her experience as a successful fashion entrepreneur (as well as all the grit of a former Rural Fire Service volunteer).

What is the role of the Expert-in-Residence?
My core responsibilities include developing and delivering core education programs, mentoring, and building Incubator and startup networks.

What drew you to this role?
I love combining my many years of experience and lessons learnt across my corporate and startup careers to ensure that any solution is clear on the customer problem to be solved.

Founding a startup can be a lonely and challenging pursuit. I get a great kick out of offering support or insight and seeing how a founder accelerates their journey.

How are our Incubator startups coping with COVID?
I am really proud of how all the startups have responded to the challenges of COVID-19. Isolation and limitations have really challenged everyone to think differently and plan new ways of solving customer problems in a time that is so uncertain. The startup community in the Incubator have shown great optimism and willingness to support each other.

What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done?
Fighting bushfires with the Rural Fire Service.

What were you like as a child?
I was an outdoor kid exploring the bush with my neighbourhood friends and only returning home when the streetlights came on.

What’s your guilty pleasure?
Dark chocolate and a glass of pinot noir.

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned in the past five years?
Persistence pays – this is after 19 rounds of IVF finally resulting in my 3-year-old daughter Ella.

Anything exciting on your horizon?
I am excited about the program we are designing for Macquarie’s researchers. This bespoke and targeted program will be open to all researchers and HDR students at Macquarie. It aims to help researchers assess the opportunity their research has to deliver real word impact via the commercialisation pathway. The program will take researchers on a customer discovery and value proposition journey with a blended learning experience over multiple guided and one-on-one sessions.

Any misconceptions about the Incubator?
A common misconception is that the Incubator is only available to Macquarie students and staff. In fact, the Incubator is open to everyone regardless of their relationship with the University. In saying that though, about 70% of our startup founders are alumni.

Another misconception is that the Incubator is only for highly technically focused businesses. Whilst we do have some deep tech startups, most are leveraging existing technology to scale their business idea, not inventing new ones.

Entrepreneurs and innovators are predominately separate groups of people. We define innovators as the inventors of new technology; so, they are more likely to be researchers. Whereas entrepreneurs are highly skilled at leveraging that innovation for business purposes or for disrupting other industries with novel use of new inventions.

How can we find out more about what you’re doing?
Register for the Incubator’s newsletter to stay up-to-date with upcoming opportunities and events. We’ve also opened applications for a mid-year intake for our resident member program.

Textile waste is fast becoming one of the planet’s most pressing environmental challenges, but one innovative Macquarie University Incubator resident is offering a solution with ethically and sustainably produced schoolwear.

“Hundreds of tonnes of non-wearable school uniforms go to landfill each year,” explains Sustainable Schoolwear founder Anne Thompson.

“If all 3.9 million Australian students throw away one polo shirt in each of their 13 school years, it will generate over 8619 tonnes of waste.

“But, if made from good recycled polyester, school shirts can be upcycled into new products such as furniture, acoustic tiles or new polyester fibre.”

Sustainable Schoolwear offers a growing range of school uniform basics, including a quick-dry polo shirt made from 100 per cent recycled plastic bottles – keeping plastics out of our oceans and landfill, and reducing fossil fuels used in polyester production.

When Anne first made her commitment to create school uniforms containing a 50/50 blend of organic cotton and recycled polyester, she encountered a steep learning curve. Not only had she never made anything in her life, she had to rapidly grow her knowledge of textiles, sustainability, manufacturing and business.

She painstakingly grew the business from three to 25 schools in around 18 months, before a crucial pivot point in January 2019 – joining the Macquarie University Incubator.

“We went from working out of storage units to presenting a professional business to the world,” Anne recalls. “The Incubator’s pitching and mentoring programs were crucial in refining our messages and focusing our efforts, which helped us win the 2019 AMP Tomorrow Fund Grant to launch our pilot program to upcycle old uniforms into new items.”

“From this pilot will come Worn Up, our charity initiative centred on harnessing the resources in non-wearable textiles to create not just new clothing, but other objects such as moulded plastic school desks. The possibilities are endless.”

Anne’s is one of the few pilot projects chosen to take part in the NSW Government’s Circular Economy Innovation Network initiative and Anne is excited by its potential to drive a genuine shift in consumption and manufacturing.

“We’re really going to be able to play around with the possibilities now, and work with partners that can really push the boundaries of sustainable manufacturing.

“Our vision is to achieve all this at a national level. We want to create something that’s fully circular, where kids can see that everything we use potentially has multiple purposes, and so they can feel optimistic about their future.” 

Applications are currently open for the Macquarie University Incubator’s resident program. 

(1) In a nutshell, my job is to…
Build a strong vibrant and engaged innovation ecosystem at Macquarie University.

(2) The question I hear most often in my work is…
Can you review my pitch deck?

(3) The thing I find most rewarding in my role is…
Seeing start-ups go on to successfully build scaling business and deliver impact by solving the “Big Problems”.

(4) This year I want to…
Continue to build Macquarie University’s entrepreneurial offerings for our students, researchers, and the wider community who are interested in innovation, impact, disruption and change.

(5) The bravest thing I’ve done is…
I’m not sure it was brave, but was definitely terrifying: Went flying in a four-seater plane with my friend’s newly acquired boyfriend who thought it was funny to cut the engine while in flight and kick start it again – after doing this three times, we eventually landed safely at the airport. Needless to say, I never flew again with that lunatic!

(6) A place that’s special to me is…
The beach and anywhere where there is water. I’m a lifesaver’s daughter so I spent all my childhood summers at the beach and in the water.

(7) My mother/father always told me…
Be kind, be brave and always give your guests a meal to remember.

(8) My guilty pleasure is…
Oysters.

(9) My hidden talent is…
Playing the clarinet and violin.

(10) A moment I’ll always remember is…
The birth of my children.

Discover what’s on at the Macquarie University Incubator.

Here, Crewmojo Co-Founder Mark Lewis talks delegation, and why he thinks it’s important to take your hands off the wheel sometimes.

Crewmojo founders Joel Duckworth (centre) and Mark Lewis (right), with HRH Prince Andrew at last year’s Pitch@Palace event in the Macquarie University Incubator. They write about their week with HRH on their blog.

Certain people get nervous when others are driving them around. They slam their foot onto a phantom brake pedal if they think that you have got too close to the car in front. They flinch if you get too close to the curb and inhale sharply when you run an orange light. It might not be their car, but they cannot relinquish their control over the outcomes.

This comparison often comes to my mind when I think about delegation in the workplace.

You wouldn’t get into a car as a passenger and tell the driver which gear they should select

When assigning tasks to others, managers must leave their ego at the door and accept that not every task will be done “their way”. Everyone has their own success formula, and the moment that you dictate how something should be done, you are likely to cause frustration for the “driver”.

Unless they say they are unsure, it is best to assume they have a route in mind

It is fair enough to check that someone knows where they’re going and ask if they need directions on how to get there, but the moment they say they have it covered, it is time to allow them to choose their route. In the workplace, there are many ways of achieving a goal or task, but without input from the individual, they will not take ownership of the journey or final result.

You wouldn’t put pressure on them to get you there within a certain time by speeding

Unrealistic deadlines are often the root cause of failed delegation. You have to put yourself in the shoes of the person, understand what’s involved and agree a realistic time frame with them rather than imposing something unachievable.

You wouldn’t be impatient with them when they’re adjusting the mirrors and their seat before they set off

Some people simply need a little time to adjust before they begin a task. Setting off in the right way is often half the battle, and if someone is not yet ready to start there is little value in impatiently pushing them to get going.

Effective delegation is about relinquishing control to the extent that it is possible. If it becomes obvious that someone is not coping with a task, it is entirely right to ask if they require help, but until that point a manager should sit back and enjoy the ride.

This post was first published on the Crewmojo blog.

Entries are currently open for Pitch@Palace Australia 2.0. Macquarie staff and students with early-stage businesses are encouraged to apply by 30 September. The University will be co-hosting the Sydney Pitch@Palace 2.0 event on November 19.

The Good Green Design Awards are presented by The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, who have joined forces to present the Green Good Design program.

Designed by Architectus and officially launched in September 2017 by HRH Prince Andrew The Duke of York, The Incubator is a space designed to nurture, equip and accommodate budding entrepreneurs as they grow a business idea or social venture into a successful start-up.

Located on the west side of campus, The Incubator building features innovative design elements including adaptive ventilation and solar panels to minimise energy usage, while maintaining a comfortable work environment regardless of the season.

“We are delighted The Incubator has been given this award. It is fitting that a building so innovative in design also houses an ideas space where people can meet, mentor, and network with a cross-section of fellow innovative thinkers,” said John Shi-Nash, Director of The Incubator.

Read more about the design and construction of The Incubator.