Dr Craig McDougall

Dr Susan Bodie: I'm Susan Bodie, I'm Head of Business Development for the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine at Edinburgh Innovations and I'm joined today by one of our Innovation Fellows, Craig McDougall. It's very nice to meet you.

Dr Craig McDougall: Hi there, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be able to talk about this opportunity.

Susan: Can you tell me a little bit about your career to date, please?

Craig: I don't have a traditional linear career. My career has been very non-linear. I started out as a physicist, I was fascinated by lasers, a total nerd, but I soon started speaking to biologists in the building and listening to their problems and collaborating with them, I got into working more with using light to manipulate biological samples. Then I got interested in other ways you could do that, so I started working with acoustics and microfluidics, I found it fascinating and I got more interested in the biology side. 

I also dipped in and out of academia into industry. I worked in a small medical startup which was fascinating because it was two of us in an office and it was very intense. I have also worked for huge very well-established companies, complete other end of the scale where you have a skunkworks team with blue sky thinking but you've got all the resources of a big company, which was nice. 

Susan: You've had a hugely varied career. What attracted you to the Innovation Fellowship?

Craig: I was interested in trying to develop technology I had come up with in one of my postdocs and take it further, but I didn't know how to do it. I've been trying to do it on the side, out of hours or on top of the actual projects I'm meant to be working on. When I saw the advert for the Innovation Fellows position, I was like "Oh wow three years with support, access to training and with other people going through it.” It just seemed like an absolute no-brainer.

Susan: So, it's a great route to unlock your innovation?

Craig: I think it's addressing a massive stumbling block that we've had in academia because you've got all these commercial opportunities out there and then you've got all these people with lots of ideas and then this huge gap and it's just terrifying there isn't a fixed formula you could follow. Which I guess a lot of people are used to if you've done a certain degree followed by a certain post-doc you know it's very linear. So, that's one of the reasons that having a career that's been very non-linear has been helpful because I saw the opportunity I knew that was exactly what I needed, and I could see why it would be useful to me. So, I am really excited by it.

Susan: How has the EI (Edinburgh Innovations) helped you along that journey?

Craig: I started a post-doc, and I had a problem, and I couldn't buy something to solve the problem. So, I tried something on a lab bench “Blue Petering”, sticking things together and trying new things. I got to the point where I recognised that I've got something that might work but I didn't have any money to buy the resources I needed to show that it worked. I tried applying to different funds. I got knocked back every time “You're off remit” “This isn't what this money's for” and I just couldn't find the funds that I needed. One day I sat down at my desk and got an email from the iTPA. It said “Are you trying to start translational bioscience? Do you need help at this stage”. This email just like grabbed me and I emailed them straight back. Through the iTPA and EI I got some money in and I was able to get more funds in but more than that the advice I've got through EI has been phenomenal. 

Susan: Can you tell me a little bit about your innovation what is it and what impact is it going to create?

Craig: I joined a respiratory gene therapy group where we were working on gene therapies for various diseases like Cystic Fibrosis. A problem we had was that we needed to get samples from inside the lung so we could tell how our therapy was performing. When taking a sample, we are interested in the layer of proteins that sits in the fluid layer that covers the lining of your lung, and the problem is that's hard to get to. There are lots of things people do to get a sample including shoving bits of tissue paper down bronchoscopes, doing bronchial brushings, and cutting bits of tissue out all of which are invasive. It can also be quite dilute because you're casting quite a wide net. 

So, what I produced was a technology where you go in and take a very small, localised sample from right at the site you were interested in. The reason that's helpful is there was a bit of a bottleneck to research there and with this tool, you can go in a localised controlled manner and take samples from various locations without causing damage because you didn't generate an immune response and you can go back to the same sample point repeatedly and see how things have changed and developed. Whereas if you went in and took a tissue biopsy you can't go back and take another one because the tissue's gone. So, it opens all these opportunities to do some interesting research. You start talking to people and saying, “I could get you a small localised liquid biopsy from somewhere that's pretty inaccessible without causing damage are you interested?” and everyone I've spoken to has shown interest so it has inspired me to try and develop it further.

Susan: So, what will success look like for you?

Craig: Success, for me, would be to have independence. Whether I’m starting my own company and delivering a marketable product, which is a huge goal of mine or starting my own research group or maybe both or some combination of those things that's where I want to go it's to make that next step.

Susan: And do you have any advice for anybody who might be considering this route?

Craig: Speak to people but speak to the right people. I think, because I'd had such a wavy career there's been various things over the years where I've done some work and thought “Oh, that's pretty cool. I wonder if I could do some of that” and then I haven’t done anything. Then five years later you see it as a product. Or you've had an idea and then you spoke to the wrong person and told them too much and disclosed what was interesting. So, my advice would be to go and speak to the EI team and look at the invention disclosure process, because so much for me just fell into place from that. Don't be scared, because if I can do it, anybody could do it. If you go into it with an open mind, you're open to what could happen, and you don't have a fixed idea about the way you think things should be or progress and you're open to completely changing and that's the exciting part of it. Just go for it, because what have you got to lose? There'll still be other posts there when you finish.

Susan: Has the fellowship opened up any opportunities for large funding pots as have you applied for anything to support your fellowship?

Craig: When funders see that you've got the time to concentrate on this that's huge. So, having the EI fellowship and being able to say; this is what I'm working on and I'm going to be working on it for three years so if you give me this grant for a year that's all I'm going to do and I will deliver on what I'm talking about. It's good from that perspective, but you know now we've had like £75,000 brought in.

Susan: And can you say who that came from?

Craig: It came from the ITPA fund and the Harmonized Impact Accelerator Fund. Another thing I would try and make clear to people is that there is money out there and they are keen to help.

Susan; So, what's the immediate next step for your innovation fellowship?

Craig: I'm currently knee-deep in the lab just gathering results. The money I received was to do different experiments, which is exciting. I'm also working towards doing an iCure application in the spring of next year and doing some business discovery and looking at that side of things more seriously.

Susan: With a view to potentially thinking of this as a spinout?

Craig: Absolutely yes.

Susan: Great well thank you very much for coming in today it was nice to have this discussion with you and I wish you all the best with your fellowship.

Craig: Thank you very much. Thanks for the opportunity I appreciate it.