Startup Hub Tour Luxembourg: Speaking with Relja Suručić

Relja Suručić: "The University of Luxembourg gives sciencepreneurs the right resources to thrive"

 

Luxembourg aims to play a pioneering role in the development of health technologies. To this end, the country is setting up a health tech campus, called HE:AL, in the City of Science Belval due to be completed in 2024, focusing on digital health and personalised medicine. HE:AL is to attract international companies with experience in medical devices, in vitro and research.

Relja Suručić, a researcher and assistant professor in medicine at the University of Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina, participated in the EURAXESS Startup Hub Tour in Luxembourg. He shared his entrepreneurial ambitions and how his research on pomegranate peel extracts in the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infections could lead to a marketable medical device.

Tell us more about your research journey?

Relja Suručić: I am an assistant professor at the Medical faculty of the University of Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina. My research focuses on utilising natural compounds by resolving issues associated with their isolation and medical formulation as potential drugs.

How did you decide to explore scientific entrepreneurship?

Relja Suručić: Recently, I led a team of researchers to investigate the use of pomegranate peel extracts in the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infections. The results of the study, entitled "Computational study of pomegranate peel extract polyphenols as potential inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 virus internalization", showed that the constituents of pomegranate peel extracts, namely punicalagin and punicalin had very promising potential for significant interactions with the selected protein targets and were therefore deemed good candidates for further in vitro and in vivo evaluation. I truly believe that some of the research results can be applied to the formulation of some medical products for infection prevention of SARS-CoV-2. This situation awakened my entrepreneurial spirit.

What kind of startup would you consider launching then?

Relja Suručić: What we have in mind is to develop a new medical device in association with the pharmaceutical industry. Though we are still at the early stage of development, we have already drafted an action plan.

Do you think Luxembourg would be a good destination to launch your medical solution?

Relja Suručić: By participating in the EURAXESS Startup Hub Tour Luxembourg, I realised how dynamic the country's entrepreneurial ecosystem is. The University of Luxembourg is very active in providing sciencepreneurs with the right resources, whether through its incubator or its technology transfer offices. In this respect, the support received by health tech spin-off NIUM is remarkable, as many public actors in research, innovation and affairs, including the Incubator of the University of Luxembourg, the Luxembourg National Research Fund of Luxembourg, and Luxinnovation joined forces. In addition, the presentations of the online working platform of the soon-to-be spin-off by Antonio Ken Iannillo and of the technology transfer office of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) by Muhammad Umer Wasim gave me food for thought.