Public Funding for Bento Bioworks LTD.

We need help with design prototyping and user-centric design approaches. We have a clear idea of the kinds of information we would like to present to different types of non-professional users. The design advisor will need to help us understand the different ways our users access information. Prototyping will likely involve trying out various methods of presenting information. A designer with a large knowledge of information architecture will be able to discover suitable approaches.

A big challenge for all dairy farms is managing the health of their livestock. An infection called mastitis causes farmers more economic losses than any other cattle disease. Mastitis is an udder infection that results in a dairy animal producing milk at lower quantity and quality. When an infection is detected, the typical approach is to treat the entire group of animals with antibiotics, including the cows that don't show symptoms. This is unhealthy for the cows that do not have the disease, and contributes to antibiotic resistance. Due to the advanced infection, the farmer loses the income expected from the lost milk. When caught early, the infection can be treated without antibiotics, and prevented from spreading. The most reliable diagnostic method is PCR technology, the same method used to identify COVID. However these diagnostic tests are done by external laboratories, and they can be very expensive and slow. Bento Lab is a portable PCR workstation that is easy to set-up. The applications of our existing customers range from decentralised malaria research to national fungi genomics surveys. We recently developed an application kit that enables bird conservationists to conduct a DNA test for bird sexing within a few hours of training. With the support of Innovate UK, we will use our existing technology to develop a package for dairy farmers to monitor their cattle, and catch infections early.