About us - Flash Caps

About us – Who stands behind Flash-Caps?

We are a team of highly motivated interdisciplinary scientists, comprising PhD students and Professors, and a diverse, highly experienced advisory board.

During the last 5 years, Andrea Rentmeister and her research team developed a mRNA cap-analogue as part of her ERC Research Grant RNActivate. The promising research results lead to a POC Grant to further develop Flash-Caps and to assess the potential of a technology transfer. Supplementing the competences of the technical research team, the innovation management team joined the highly innovative research project to elaborate the market potential and the customers’ requirements. Moreover, experts in mRNA research, the overall life science industry, venture capital investments, and technology transfer legislations support the team as an advisory board.

Our Team

Technical Research

Prof. Dr. Andrea Rentmeister

is a well-known expert for mRNA research and Biological Chemistry at the University of Munster. She has extensive work experience in academic research, especially in biomolecular label chemistry.

Florian Weissenböck

holds a Master’s degree in chemistry and is responsible for both the optimisation of the Flash-Caps synthesis and the upscaling and stability tests. Furthermore, his synthesis expertise will enable him to prepare respective SOPs for the Flash-Caps synthesis.

Nils Klöcker

supplements the team with his knowledge of quality control methods as well as safety and handling procedures. He holds a Master’s degree in chemistry and has practical expertise in nucleotide chemistry and mRNA biochemistry.

Innovation Management

Prof. Dr. Jens Leker

is an expert in innovation management and business analytics, who is well connected in the chemical industry. He is highly experienced in business development and links the scientific results with the economic approach.

Dr. Lars Jahnke

is an expert in statistical analyses and will support the data analytical assessment of the market and competitors of Flash-Caps. Working as an academic council he also has a general understanding of regulations and legislations.

Anton Block

supports the innovation management team with his expertise in data analytics and consulting. He holds a Master’s degree in business chemistry which enables him to combine knowledge from the areas of economics and chemistry. With his data science experience he conducts market analysis and investigates the patent landscape as part of the competitor analysis.

Anja Overwien

supplements the innovation management team with her entrepreneurial network and her expertise in new business development, corporate venturing and project management. She holds a Master’s degree in business chemistry and focuses on the qualitative research (consumer interviews) and the business opportunity of the innovation (strategic approach).

Our Advisory Council

Werner Klaffke

is a German scientist and manager with 30+ years of experience in research and innovation management. He holds a PhD in natural products chemistry from the University of Münster, habilitated at the University of Hamburg and was a professor of organic chemistry in Münster. He was i.a. the CEO of “Bayern Innovativ GmbH”, co-founded two start-ups and worked at Unilever NV. Currently he is the chief executive on the board of the technical training and knowledge transfer institute “Haus der Technik”, advises other entrepreneurs and holds lectures on “Innovation Management in the FMCG sector”.

Michael Mayer

is a venture capitalist since 1990. He holds a Diploma in Economics from the University of Konstanz and is a partner at the venture capital firm eCAPITAL. Before joining eCAPITAL, he founded the venture capital firm TechnoStart, which focused on seed & early-stage technology companies, and before this served as the head of the working group “Technology Transfer” at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation.

Katharina Steinberg

is the head of the research support department at the University of Münster and the coordinator of the NRW University IP Network. She holds a PhD in Law and specialized on the support of research transfer including research data management, IP protection, funding, and legal advice. Moreover, she is part of the innovation2business.nrw project which focusses on demand-oriented transfer through collaborations between science (universities) and businesses.

Our Purpose

Flash-Caps revolutionizes the mRNA research!

Flash-Caps enable researchers to start mRNA translation at a certain time and place. Thereby, the uncaged mRNA remains unchanged, and its “silent” form can be produced using already established techniques. This enables more exact study-designs, revealing finer details of cell’s biochemical mechanisms and opens unprecedented research opportunities in molecular biology, RNA biochemistry and cell biology, and accelerates the successful development of mRNA therapeutics.