Mikota Ltd in collaboration with Cardiff University and Royal Veterinary College (University of London) are evaluating a new protein adjuvant as a vaccine delivery platform, primarily aimed at the companion and livestock market. This project is building on Mikota's earlier hemocyanin work in creating novel constructs to address research demonstrating that companion animals and livestock may be potential asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers. The outputs from this project will demonstrate the efficacy of Mikota's BioCyanin constructs as a vaccine adjuvant in a mouse model. This work will be expanded in future animal trials which are expected to lead to evidence for potential future use in human COVID-19 vaccines, or other coronavirus vaccines.

"Mikota Ltd is looking to build on early investigative work into hemocyanin from the blood of the slipper limpet, an invasive, non-native species to UK shores. Having successfully identified hemocyanin proteins in the limpets as well as drafted and tested a basic extraction protocol, Mikota now aims to scale up production of this hemocyanin to a commercial level. As well as scaling up production, we will focus on perfecting a storage method for the finished product that will preserve the viability of the hemocyanin for long term storage. This work is being undertaken in collaboration with Cardiff University, with their work packages being led by Dr Mark Young and Prof Thomas Wirth. In support of Cardiff University work, and Mikota's helping young people prepare for the work place, Mikota is funding 3 Professional Year students to be placed at Cardiff University. By scaling up this process Mikota will deliver a new sustainable medical grade hemocyanin sourced locally from an invasive species to the UK, that has significant value in the anticancer, vaccine and immunotherapy markets."

Mikota Ltd is a startup in the high value niche market of novel biomaterials from the marine environment. This project is for a feasibility study into a new and novel non-mammalian marine collagen which is thermally stable in its native form, in line with bovine collagen, the gold standard for biomaterials. This will be a product that, from early indications, has all the benefits of bovine collagen with the added advantage of being non-mammalian. The biomaterials market has actively demanded and pursued non-mammalian alternatives in the collagen range, but the present technologies have fallen short on a critical deliverable, which is thermal stability. Fish collagen has a very low melting point, as do the so called "collagen-like" jellyfish products on the market, which also struggle to actually be identified as collagen. The project will include early stage technical feasibility work undertaken by our industry partner, Collagen Solutions plc, and includes market analysis and customer questionnaire work being done by Mikota Ltd in conjunction with Collagen Solutions and select potential customers and agents.