WearOptimo and ANU: towards a healthcare future within the fourth industrial revolution
Channel: ANU TV
Date: 27/11/2018

Imagine a future where simple, wearable devices provided truly personalised medicine. These "micro-wearables" would offer personalised diagnostics across a range of diseases. Far from science fiction, ANU Entrepreneurial Fellow Professor Mark Kendall is developing these micro-wearables now, with the potential to improve the lives of millions of people around the world.

His company, WearOptimo is working on devices that range from low-cost, disposable devices for short-duration measurements, through to integration in the next-generation smart watches for continuous monitoring in precision health. This is an opportunity to hear directly from Professor Kendall about how these devices will offer minimally-invasive, pain-free health monitoring and enhance our quality of life as we move into the fourth industrial revolution.

Vice-Chancellor's Entrepreneurial Professor Mark Kendall is an internationally-recognised leading innovator in producing technology solutions to global health problems; and a translator of commercial technologies focusing on delivery of drugs to skin and skin-based disease diagnostics. This has culminated from more than 20 years of experience researching, developing and innovating, authoring more than 200 refereed publications, and being an inventor on more than 130 patents (of which more than 70 have been granted so far).

While at the University of Oxford, Mark contributed as an inventor into the biolistics technology, which was commercialised with PowderMed (the technology transfer company) purchased by Pfizer for $400 million in 2006. Then he invented the Nanopatch, and in 2011 founded Vaxxas to commercialise the Nanopatch. In recognition of his innovation and translation, Mark has received numerous awards. These include: the 2016 CSL Young Florey Medal, a 2015 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, a 2012 Rolex Laureate, The Australian Innovation Challenge winner (2011), the Eureka Prize for Interdisciplinary Research (2011) and Younger Engineer of Britain (2004).