Dr Asel Sartbaeva, 2024 finalist for Entrepreneurial Leader of the Year at the Triple E Awards, has removed the need for vaccine refrigeration. Primarily based out of the University of Bath, UK, Sartbaeva’s work propelled the co-founding of the biotech spinout, EnsiliTech. Her innovative research exemplifies how universities can address global challenges through their commitment to excellence in research, and illustrates the importance of supporting leadership in entrepreneurship. Based on over a decade of research into technology to make vaccines stable at all temperatures by encasing them in silica – simple sand - this ground-breaking solution to the problem of vaccines 'spoiling' means more people around the world can be saved from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Dr. Sartbaeva in the lab.
Priority Research
Thermostable vaccines were named a priority research area in the World Health Organisation’s Global Vaccine Action Plan 2011-2020.
Thermal stability is achieved by wrapping a vaccine’s active ingredient in an inert shell that prevents parts of the structure sticking together and also stops the structure as a whole from unravelling. Clumping and unfolding are the two main reasons vaccine proteins deteriorate when they’re removed from cold storage. Using the Bath team’s award-winning, patented technology – named ensilication – a vaccine can now be warmed to boiling-point temperatures and jiggled about in extreme humidity without falling apart.
"Our technology promises to be a game-changer for families all over the world – especially those living in remote and impoverished areas," says Dr Sartbaeva.
Dr Sartbaeva began her research into ensilication after a vaccination appointment for her five-day-old daughter in 2010. After seeing that the vaccine was taken out of the fridge, she started researching why vaccines have to be chilled. She was horrified to find out that more than 50% of the vaccines spoil in low-income countries because of cold chain problems. Worldwide, there are 1.5 million infants under the age of five dying every year (one infant every twenty seconds) because they are not vaccinated in time.
It is estimated that cold chain failures are costing the biopharma industry £35 billion a year. In addition to this economic cost, removing the ‘cold chain’ refrigeration process help relieve the environmental cost. Not only is vaccine wastage reduced, but the additional transportation needs to keep vaccines from spoiling en route are limited.
Symbol of resistance to sexism in Kyrgyzstan
Dr Sartbaeva was born in Kyrgyzstan – then part of the Soviet Union – and overcame early family resistance to study science at school. This determination led her to study Natural Sciences at the best university in Kyrgyzstan, where she became the first ever female winner of the National Student Olympiad in Materials. (She won twice!)
She later won a postgraduate scholarship to Cambridge and, in 2004, became the first Central Asian Cambridge Doctoral graduate. She followed this achievement with postdoctoral research in the USA, returning to the UK in 2007 to a prestigious Glasstone Fellowship in Oxford.
In 2010 she won a Royal Society Research Fellowship for her work on the design and development of porous materials for greener catalysts, and quickly used the flexibility of the fellowship to develop her research on vaccine ensilication – a novel method to make vaccines stable without refrigeration.
Dr Sartbaeva’s drive to tackle gender inequality more broadly in STEM was catalysed by her experience of becoming a highly successful scientist despite the Kyrgyzstan culture - semi-nomadic and highly patriarchal, where, even in the twenty-first century, bride kidnapping and femicide are still common. Girls’ place in society is determined by the family patriarch and married girls are considered their “husband’s property” - no longer “protected” by their birth family. Against this backdrop, Sartbaeva was the only Kyrgyz female undergraduate in her undergraduate course. Change is happening, and in no small part due to Sartbaeva’s pioneering public engagement. Dr. Sartbaeva was called a “symbol of resistance to sexism in Kyrgyzstan” by Global Voices in 2017.
Technology take-up
Dr Sartbaeva’s aspiration has always been to make the transportation of vaccines and other life-saving biological materials more efficient and cost-effective, while also reducing the carbon footprint of this critical supply chain.
“Before the pandemic, it was clear that some people in the biopharma industry – the people who make vaccines – wouldn’t be interested in our technology,” says Dr Sartbaeva. “After all, they make money from 50% of vaccines going to waste. It was disheartening. But during the pandemic, vaccine wastage became very topical, and suddenly the conversation changed. Companies started saying: ‘We need your technology – talk to us.’”
Dr. Sartbaeva’s research and journey illustrate the need for HEIs to support innovative research, furthering the possibilities for staff to become entrepreneurial leaders. By bolstering leaders, HEIs can further the possibilities for breaking down gender barriers, creating more sustainable solutions, and impacting society on a greater scale.
In 2022, Dr Asel Sartbaeva finalised pre-seed investment into EnsiliTech of £1.2 million and in 2024 EnsiliTech was awarded £1.7 million from the UK government to develop the world’s first thermally stable mRNA vaccine. The recognition awards followed: Dr Sartbaeva recently won Female Entrepreneur and EnsiliTech won in the Science category at the UK’s EntreConf Awards in celebration of entrepreneurialism.
Dr Asel Sartbaeva winning Female Entrepreneur at the EntreConf Awards in September 2024. EnsiliTech won in the Science category.
On also being shortlisted as a finalist for the Triple E Awards, Dr Sartbaeva says:
“To be recognised as an entrepreneurial leader at a European level is a huge honour. We are a mission-driven company to ensure that the cold chain doesn’t prevent vaccine delivery. Through our research we have created a coating for vaccine molecules to make vaccines thermally stable. We now need to convince the biotech companies to take up our technology and the [ACEEU] Triple E shortlist is a help in the awareness raising needed to do so.”
Further Reading:
More on EnsiliTech’s ground-breaking solution to the problem of vaccines ‘spoiling’;https://stories.bath.ac.uk/why-tomorrow-s-vaccines-will-come-with-a-pinch-of-sand/index.html
If you are interested in connecting with EnsiliTech please email: partnerships@bath.ac.uk
More on our Innovation with Impact at the University of Bath;https://stories.bath.ac.uk/innovation-with-impact/
Dr Sartbaeva was supported by various services at the University of Bath to enable her to commercialise her research and spin out EnsiliTech. This included SETsquared Bath and the Technology Transfer team in Research and Innovation Services (RIS).
Images courtesy of the author.