Smart Nano NI Member spotlight - Causeway Sensors are revolutionising drug discovery with nanotechnology

Causeway Sensors is an early-stage spin-out from Queen’s University Belfast, focusing on helping the drug discovery market to capture better data and further inform their understanding of intricate bioproduction processes through the application of photonics.

Biopharmaceutical production is a complex and time-consuming process and the plasmonic nanostructure technology that Causeway Sensors has developed brings data to stages of the production process where it can’t currently be collected. This data reveals a more complete picture for candidate selection, leading to a higher drug approval success rate. Causeway has a close-knit, multi-disciplinary team who tackle the challenge of translating fundamental scientific research into a transformative real-world product, using both mature in-house skills, as well as the growing ecosystem of photonics, life sciences, and general high technology partners and services available to work with in Northern Ireland.

In 2018, Causeway was awarded the Institute of Physics’ Start-up Award, recognising the ongoing impact Causeway research and development has had on both the academic and commercial landscape. This could not have been achieved without the inter-connected photonics community developed to date in Northern Ireland - a network which Smart Nano NI aims to amplify under the Strength in Places Fund. ​