K- Rising Technology 2

KAUTM(Korea Association of University Technology Transfer Management), KIPA(Korea Invention Promotion Association), and DeltaTech-Korea are introducing Korea’s Rising Technologies.

KAUTM is a network organization made up of technology licensing offices of universities that collaborate and interact through the network. We are conducting promoting the commercialization of technologies of member universities through seminars, marketing events, and knowledge committees.

KIPA has boosted the value and competitiveness of Korea’s intellectual property for the last 40 years as the nation’s first and leading institution of its kind.

DTK is a technology-based company that specializes in innovation management, technology transfer, and business acceleration program.

Our Technology Offers

Dressing for Quicker Healing of Wounds

One of the most common ways of treating wounds is by dressing them. Wound dressings have to fulfill several criteria and roles to be deemed suitable, such as being non-toxic, easy to attach and remove, permeable to water vapor and air, and capable of controlling wound secretions. Research has shown that appropriate wound dressing accelerates tissue regeneration and helps prevent infections, thereby accelerating recovery.

Recently, nitric oxide (NO) has garnered the attention of scientists as a useful biocompatible substance to treat wounds. NO is a molecule that naturally forms part of the human immune system as an antibacterial agent, but it also helps in the production of collagen, cell proliferation, and the formation of new blood vessels. However, to employ NO in wound dressings, it is necessary to engineer a formulation that can store NO and release it in a controlled manner over the wound.

The present technology is a novel wound dressing system that contains S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO), a naturally occurring NO donor, encapsulated in a polymer, such as chitosan. The proposed wound dressing slowly releases NO over the wound surface, which, as several in vivo and in vitro experiments showed, helps fight off harmful bacteria and speed up the natural healing process.

Age Based Artificial Skin

Traditionally, the safety and efficacy of beauty and cosmetic products were tested via animal studies. With the advent of technologies, increasing awareness on animal cruelties and with more countries banning testing of cosmetics on animals, there is an impetus for beauty and cosmetic companies to look for alternative testing methods.

Testing on artificial skin is one such alternate method. Most commercial artificial skin is cultured via the air-liquid interface culture method; however, this method is not able to produce artificial skin with specific characteristics of the different age group.

We have developed a technology that is able to produce artificial skin that models after the different age groups. Since our skin conditions change with age, having a “one size fits all” artificial skin will not produce the most accurate results during testing.

We are looking for companies to license our technology or to co-develop this technology for other applications.

Plant Derived Nanoparticles As Anticancer Therapeutics

Despite medical advancements in radiotherapy and chemotherapy, breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer in women and the leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for nearly half a million deaths annually.

This technology offers a new class of nanomedicine using plant-derived nanovesicles (PDNV). Nanovesicles are 50–150 nm small extracellular vesicles that harbor proteins, lipids, RNAs, and DNA, and thereby act as important mediators of cell-cell communications in various physiological and pathological pathways. PDNV are isolated from ginger, pomegranate, and yam which exhibits a potential anti-cancer effect that is mediated through proliferation, angiogenesis, and metastasis.

A Novel EGR1-inhibiting Compound for Atopic Dermatitis

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is the most common form of the skin disorder, eczema. In the United States, AD affects more than 16.5 million adults and 9.6 million children. This chronic skin condition makes the skin red and itchy and tends to flare periodically. At present, there is no cure identified for AD. Current mitigation measures include the use of steroids and immunosuppressants, avoidance of harsh soaps, frequent moisturization of the skin and prevention of triggers that could worsen the skin condition. However, these methods require patients’ conscientious efforts and can only help to prevent bouts of AD. Therefore, this calls for novel therapeutic measures for AD.

EGR1 (Early Growth Response protein 1) is a zinc-finger type transcription factor that plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of AD. The technology comprises of a novel therapeutic compound AB1711 for AD. The technology provider has shown that AB1711 improves skin lesions and reduces scratching behavior in an AD mouse model by directly targeting the DNA-binding domain of EGR1. AB1711 compound could be an innovative therapeutic pipeline for atopic dermatitis.

The technology provider is seeking collaborative opportunities to further the development of AB1711 as a novel therapeutic agent for AD. Potential partnership can be research collaboration with academic or industry partners.

Programmable 2D and 3D Liquid Crystal Elastomers

Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are a class of materials that straddle the boundary between liquids and solids. A striking feature of LCEs is their reversible shape transformation at both micro- and macroscopic scales, which can be controlled by strategically arranging molecular orientations. Although much progress has been made since their discovery over 30 years ago, the conventional cross-linking technique used to join the polymer chains of LCEs has mostly been used to manufacture 2D films; few studies have focused on using this standard approach to manufacture 3D-shaped LCEs.

This technology comprises a novel fabrication process that can be used to fabricate 2D- and 3D-shaped LCEs at both the macro- and microscale. After the chemical synthesis of liquid crystal oligomers (which are chains of repeating units called monomers), the approach involves a facile two-step UV curing process. A key aspect to this method is that the LCE is mechanically programmed before the final UV curing step by simply stretching or pressing it into the desired shape, which is then ‘remembered’ by the material. LCEs produced using this process exhibit reversible shape transformations when chemical or thermal stimuli are applied. Thus, this technology paves the way to several applications that require shape-programable materials.

Smart Clothes Using Electronic Fabric Sensors

There is a clothing-type wearable device for measuring muscle activity by detecting a micro current on the muscle surface. However, this measuring method has drawbacks since it cannot measure the value accurately and it is not user-friendly (uncomfortable to wear).

This technology is demonstrated to solve the above-mentioned problems, in which the smart clothes was designed to measure the muscle activities. The solution consists of electrical element controller and device that are integrated to the clothing.