TIME MBE Thesis presentation

On Thursday, January 18, 2018, at 10:30, the presentation of the dissertation of Dr Emmanouil Trichas will take place at the Bourmpaki Hall, Econ Building.

The thesis' title is:"Patent Landscape of Immunoassays - Micro & NanoTechnologies: The Top Players"

Over the past 30 years there has been a continuous advancement of a set of technologies that today seem to affect a lot our daily life. Advances in biotechnology and biochemistry, as well as in microtechnology and nanotechnology yield process and product innovations at a wide range of industries.

In this essay we focus on the patent landscape of a small, but important part of these innovations set; the immunoassays-immunosensors. They are biological tests that detect the presence and measure the concentration of biomarkers (usually proteins). A less sophisticated and simple form of theirs is the pregnancy test. In this study, we investigate the new knowledge derived from the synergy of prior immunoassays art with the advances in microtechnology and nanotechnology.

The driving force for this patent landscape study is the technical, social and economic importance of immunoassays. They are fundamental tools for the entire value chain of drug discovery and drug development and key technology for the emerging personalized medicine; the ability to tailor disease diagnosis and treatment on individuals. Several other industries will be also seriously affected by immunoassay innovations through the proteomics (the set of proteins of species in nature). They will transforme agriculture and food production by increasing productivity of crops and nutritive value of foods. Plant proteomics will be key for redesigning plant genes to optimize nutrition, taste, durability, resistance to infectious agents and to climate changes. The immunosensor innovations will also radicalize the way we treat the environment and we consume energy. Through proteomics again, immunosassays can be used to monitor the “health” of ecosystems. The characterization of microbial communities, using high-throughput technologies and computational modeling (immunoassay technologies) can help us understand how microbial communities affect the ecosystem, the climate, as well as the inter-species interactions. Immunoassays will also pave the way to develop also alternative bioenergy sources and enhance carbon sequestration.

This essay is a first and basic effort to illustrate the current patent landscape of the aforementioned synergy of technologies in order to find out which are roughly the top players. Throughout patent data analysis we find out which are the top patent offices, the top organizations at the major patent offices, what is the distribution between private and public organizations-applicants and what is the patent filing performance of foreign applicants at each patent office. Our findings constitute a big picture of what is going on in the patent landscape of immunoassays - micro & nano technologies domain. Those who are leading today the patent landscape of this domain will be the future key market players of the aforementioned affected by immunoassays industries.