Innovations from Lund

LTH doctoral student Michal Stala realised that he was sitting on an exciting new business idea and formed the company Mistbase together with Magnus Midholt. Mistbase developed a solution of combined hardware and software that allows gadgets connected to the Internet to communicate wirelessly. In 2017 Mistbase was acquired by market leading ARM in a deal worth 100 million SEK.

Using nanotechnology to create the next generation of cells systems began as a student project in engineering nanoscience. The patented technology allows the company to produce nanofiber at industrial scale – greatly increasing capacity. It also creates more human-like culturing conditions, mimicing connecting tissue, which potentially making the process of developing new therapies more accurate. 

Jan Erik Solem is a researcher in image analysis and a true entrepreneur. After selling a successful facial recognition company to Apple, he founded Mapillary, a user-generated street view service. By collecting images from the public, Mapillary builds an open and alternative map service on the web.[LT1] 

A mathematician at Lund University’s Faculty of Engineering, Jan Erik Solem, developed a search engine with advanced image analysis and facial recognition. The search engine formed the basis of the company Polar Rose, which was sold to Apple in 2010. 

Entrepreneur Christer Fåhraeus came up with the idea to combine smart cards with advanced image analysis for automatic fingerprint recognition. Together with Mårten Öbrink and Nils Bernhard, he founded Precise Biometrics.[LT1] 

In a project initiated by Ericsson Mobile, a wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances is developed thereby opening a whole new world for the electronics sector. The technology was introduced onto the market in 1998 and was called Bluetooth after Viking chief Harald Blåtand (Harold Bluetooth). Currently, millions of new Bluetooth products are shipped every day.

Researchers at Lund University's Faculty of Engineering developed the health-promoting bacteria culture Lactobacillus. The research finding was subsequently developed into a complete consumer product and the fruit drink Proviva was launched in the early 1990s. In 2010 Proviva was sold to French dairy giant Danone for billions.

Professor Rickard Öste realizes that oat is not just healthily composed nutrition, but also tastes good in liquid form. He developed a liquid oat-base as an alternative to milk drinks and founded a company, Oatly, in 1994, then under the name Ceba. The company is now the global market leader in plant-based milk alternatives.

Chemist Kjell Wetterlin and his colleagues at what was then Draco developed the Turbohaler – an inhalator for the dosage and inhalation of asthma medicine. The product revolutionised asthma medication and currently helps tens of millions of people the world over to control their illness.

Through the use of flow control, medical researcher Björn Jonson and his colleague Sven Ingelstedt succeeded in creating the modern respirator. The apparatus, which was named the Servo Ventilator, represented a breakthrough for the establishment of intensive care throughout the world.

Professor Claes Lundgren and his colleague Stefan Lichtneckert discovered that chain smokers could avoid withdrawal symptoms by using chewing tobacco. This discovery convinced them that the cravings people had for smoking was due to nicotine addiction, and the two doctors focused on developing an alternative to chewing tobacco. The result was Nicorette – the world's first nicotine medication.

Physicist Hellmuth Hertz and cardiologist Inge Edler were the first in the world to see a heart beating. Together, the two researchers had developed the first echocardiogram for ultrasound examination of the heart, a technology which would prove to be revolutionary for diagnostics. Edler and Hertz were nominated several times for the Nobel prize but had to make do with the next best thing – the American Lasker award.

The world’s first clinically useable artificial kidney was developed by professor of medicine Nils Alwall. In 1964, together with industrialist Holger Crafoord, he founded what is now a global company, Gambro, and three years later the first artificial kidney was launched. In 2013 Gambro was acquired by Baxter.

Physicist Janne Rydberg discovered that the wavelengths of photons in atoms can be calculated using a certain formula. One of the constants in the formula is common to all matter and is known within the international science community as the Rydberg constant. The discovery provided fundamental knowledge on the structure of atoms.

Per Henrik Ling developed a system for massage and muscle stretching. Today the technique is known as Swedish or classical massage and is one of the most common forms of massage in the Western world. Ling later moved to Stockholm where he founded the Royal Central Institute for Gymnastics, now the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences.