The shortlisted entries for the Triple E Awards highlight the region’s most amazing organisations, individuals, projects, and programmes in entrepreneurship and engagement.

Dr Asel Sartbaeva, Department of Chemistry, is Co-Founder and CEO of EnsiliTech, which spun-out of the University of Bath in 2022. The biotech spinout has developed a chemical technology for making vaccines thermally stable for storing and transporting without the need for refrigeration.

The impact of this innovation is truly ground-breaking. Worldwide there are 1.5 million infants under the age of five dying from vaccine preventable diseases every year or one infant every 20 seconds. In low-income countries up to 50% of vaccines spoil before they are brought to people, also causing wastage of energy and packaging. It is estimated that cold chain failures are costing the biopharma industry £35 billion a year.

EnsiliTech’s innovation is based on over a decade of research from Dr Asel Sartbaeva, an award-winning interdisciplinary chemist. The impressive highlights of Dr Asel Sartbaeva’s career, which contributed to her European finalist nomination at the Triple E Awards, include:

  • 2004: First Central Asian to receive a PhD from the University of Cambridge following a postgraduate scholarship
  • 2007: Received a prestigious Glasstone Fellowship to the University of Oxford
  • 2010-2019: Received a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and moved to University of Bath in 2012
  • 2014: One of 175 Faces of Chemistry by the Royal Society of Chemistry
  • 2017: Named “symbol of resistance to sexism in Kyrgyzstan” by Global Voices and awarded an IChemE in Biotechnology and WISE World award
  • 2019: Hanson Medal recipient
  • 2020: Distinction by the Kyrgyz Republic and a Precedent award from the Civic Group Initiative in Kyrgyzstan
  • 2020: Winner of the Emerging Technologies Competition from the Royal Society of Chemistry
  • 2021: Named a UNICEF Ambassador for the ‘Girls in Science’ programme in Kyrgyzstan
  • 2021: Woman of the Year from FDM Everywoman in Tech
  • 2022: EnsiliTech spins out from the University of Bath
  • 2022-23: Awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellowship
  • 2023: Secures £1.2 million of pre-seed investment for EnsiliTech
  • 2023: Rosa Otynbaeva Foundation Women in STEM mentor for a group of young girls building the first Kyrgyz satellite
  • 2024: EnsiliTech is awarded £1.7 million from the UK government to develop the world’s first thermally stable mRNA vaccine

Dr Asel 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 this shortlist will help in the awareness raising needed to do so.

The Triple E award ceremony for recognising excellence in entrepreneurship and engagement in HE takes place in Lisbon from 18 to 20 September. See the full list of Triple E Awards finalists.