Text: Per-Steinar Moen
Photo: Kristoffer Wittrup

In total, jury member Kristian Onarheim awarded NOK 4.6 million to six projects: NOK 1 million to four projects from researchers and employees at NTNU and Helse Midt-Norge and NOK 300.000 to two student projects.

Stop the sound with fungi

Demp Bio are sustainable soundproofing panels made from residual resources, “or rubbish”, as master’s student Helle Skog Christiansen says. She is studying at the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship and, together with students Guro Stålstrøm, Endre Svendsen and Cedric Langeweg, has developed sound-absorbing panels for use in offices, retail premises and restaurants that want to have an environmentally friendly profile.

Wood waste and other residual resources are grown together by mycelium into a solid mass. Mycelium is the fungal root network, the vegetative part of fungi that grows in rich filamentous networks underground, and is so easy to activate and manipulate that some call mycelium “nature’s own 3D printer”.

“We use mycelium as a form of glue, as a binding agent. Then we can create a unique design based on what the customer wants,” says Helle Skog Christiansen.

The result is effective sound-absorbing (tested by the acoustics group at NTNU) and fire-retardant panels. While many other acoustic panels on the market today are products based on petroleum or glass wool, which contribute to increased greenhouse gas emissions, Demp Bio is biodegradable.

The funding from NTNU Discovery will be used to automate and further develop the production line they have set up at Nyhavna. “With NTNU Discovery, we can scale up considerably, test different types of residual resources and fungi mycelium – and then start selling this – eventually,” says Helle Skog Christiansen. And the first panels will be ready for sale in a few months’ time.

Safer and more sustainable eye surgery

Terje Fagerholt, consultant ophthalmologist at the Department of Ophtalmology at St. Olavs hospital, is behind the invention of the Vitrectomy Gas Injector, a small device that reduces the use of SF₆ gas (sulfur hexafluoride), a highly climate-damaging gas, in retinal surgery by up to 95 percent. SF₆ gas is about 24,000 times more harmful than CO₂. This device also minimizes the risk of low eye pressure, a common complication in such procedures, by injecting gas in a more controlled manner.

“I’m a bit of an engineer at heart, I think. I really like practical problem solving and mechanics,” says Terje Fagerholt.

After tinkering with the idea for a while, he contacted NTNU TTO, which has the main responsibility for commercializing all technology originating from the Helse Midt-Norge RHF and NTNU. “I know my field, I know retinal surgery and mechanics, and I have a good deal of ideas about the product, but regarding intellectual property rights, applications for funding, financing and commercialization, I don’t have a clue, and it’s really nice to have a system for that,” he says.

NTNU TTO led him on to NTNU Discovery, first with pre-project funding to develop a prototype together with Eggs Design, and now with main project funding. “NTNU Discovery has been essential in getting to where we are now, we wouldn’t have been able to create a prototype without it,” says Terje Fagerholt.

Main Project Funding Recipients, autumn 2024

NOK 1.000.000 for employee projects:

NxGenNeuro: Advanced modular cell models with directional channels, 3D structures and nanoporous microelectrodes that can be tailored to researchers’ needs, with Nicolai Winter-Hjelm and Pawel Sikorski at the Department of Neuromedicine and Movement Science and Yngve Sommervoll NTNU TTO.

Mini10K: Further development of a miniature microscope that can film brain activity in small laboratory animals that move freely and naturally in the laboratory, with Weijan Zong and Annelene Dahl at the Kavli Institute.

TheraLeuk: New and more precise treatment method for leukemia and similar cancers, with Berit Johansen and Siril Skaret Bakke at the Department of Biology.

Vitrectomy Gas Injector: Device for gas injections in retinal surgery led by Terje Fagerholt at the Clinic of Ear-Nose-Throat, Eye and Maxillofacial Surgery at St. Olavs Hospital, Helse Midt-Norge and Yngve Sommervoll NTNU TTO.

NOK 300.000 for student projects:

Demp Bio: Sustainable and biodegradable acoustic panels based on mushroom mycelium and residual products, with Helle Skog Christiansen, Guro Stålstrøm, Endre Svendsen and Cedric Langeweg at the NTNU Entrepreneurial School at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management

EquaFish: Software that collects and visualizes data from land-based fish farms in real time, with Finn Lippestad and Eirik Lillebudal at the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management.