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Queen Mary researcher named ‘Future Innovator’ at National Awards

21 September 2020

Dr Khai D Q Nguyen speaking at the Innovations in Elastomeric Materials and Products event in 2019
Dr Khai D Q Nguyen speaking at the Innovations in Elastomeric Materials and Products event in 2019
The KTP Best of the Best awards celebrate the best of KTP’s three-way partnerships, which bring together business, research teams and qualified graduates to drive innovation for UK business and organisations.

The Future Innovator award recognises qualified graduates, known as KTP associates, who have shown outstanding skills, above and beyond normal expectations.

Dr Nguyen was commended for the significant impact he has made to the business FormFormForm through the KTP, including the introduction of a new product which has generated sales of over £2.5m since launch and troubleshooting the manufacturing line to help prevent raw materials waste.

Commenting on his award Dr Nguyen said: “It is very exciting news and I am absolutely thrilled to receive the Future Innovator award this year. That's a remarkable achievement not only for myself but for the project team for what we have done in the last three years in this KTP project. I hope this will help showcase the successful collaboration and excellent research activities between FormFormForm and Queen Mary”.

This result follows on from previous success at the 2019 Best of the Best awards, where a Queen Mary materials science research project received the Engineering Excellence Award.

Award winners were announced at a virtual ceremony, which took place on Wednesday 9 September 2020.

A new fix for mouldable glue

Through this KTP Queen Mary University of London and Dr Nguyen have been working with East London-based company FormFormForm to improve the cure chemistry of its mouldable glue product Sugru.

Sugru, is an innovative silicon composite that sticks to almost anything and then turns into a strong flexible rubber overnight. The product is now used by people in over 175 countries and territories around the world.

By developing new safe and fast-curing formulations for these silicon composites, Dr Nguyen has enabled Sugru to extent the market for their product and identify possible new applications from industrial adhesives for complex applications to 3D printing of biomedical chips that can help in the search for improved diagnostics and therapeutics.

Shaping future UK innovation

KTPs are three-way partnerships between UK businesses, academic teams and qualified postgraduates that support advances in business-led innovation through greater use of knowledge, technology and skills.

The project was selected as a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Awards finalist from over 800 industry and societal innovation projects nationwide.

KTN’s CEO, Dr Alicia Greated, said: “At KTN we are committed to shaping innovation communities of the future which is exactly what made these awards so inspiring. Not only are our KTP winners actively bringing research into commercial business environments, but they are also bringing new ways of thinking, diverse experience and varied skill sets together to make a manful difference in building a sustainable economy and society.”
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