She cracked the cold chain problem for RNA vaccines and it could change everything-Dr Apanpreet Kaur

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Hi, I'm Upneet Kaur, CEO and co-founder at AlphaVax Biotech.

[00:00:04]>> What's the business story behind your spinout? Well, I'm a first-generation in this country, so my parents were originally from the north of India, and I saw them build their own business from the ground up, and I have family who have also done the same. So, I've growing up being surrounded by that entrepreneurial mindset, and I think then naturally I I ended up heading in that direction after completing my PhD, where we developed these nanoparticles that will remove cold chain from for RNA therapeutics. So, it was almost a natural process for me to want to develop something and and bring it into the real world. What keeps you motivated as a founder?

[00:00:45]So, what keeps me motivated as a founder is I really want to see cold chain removal so that vaccines can get to corners of the world, low-income countries where they lack that cold chain infrastructure. So, I think day-to-day that is my overarching motivation. How has Imperial and ChemEng Enterprise supported you? So, the ChemEng Enterprise has been massively useful in terms of helping us develop that commercial acumen. We have annual enterprise days that help us get in front of investors and build our business strategy. And and we've also got regular one-to-one meetings with Sandro, the director of enterprise in our department, and he has also been so helpful with supporting in terms of making connections and also providing advice to help grow the business.

[00:01:37]>> [snorts] >> In terms of the wider ecosystem at Imperial, the Imperial Enterprise Lab is also very very helpful. So, my last question for you is what's next for your spinout? So, we are close to spinning out from Imperial College officially and are currently raising our seed round to start the development of our company over the next 2 years.