Two VCU researchers who have collaborated for years to address challenges found in the field of medical aerosols have received a $3.2 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Enjoy this issue of Launchpad

"By bringing skilled industry experts to inventors early in the invention cycle, we enhance the chances of delivering VCU discoveries to the commercial market. The end result: greater prominence for VCU, economic development for Central Virginia, and technologies that improve and enhance human lives while addressing society’s grand challenges." - Ivelina Metcheva, Ph.D., MBA

See the full note from Ivelina here...

Since July 2022, VCU TechTransfer and Ventures has licensed laboratory discoveries and other inventions developed by faculty and trainees to 12 startup companies. Pictured here is Rebecca Martin, Ph.D., a longtime VCU researcher-turned-entrepreneur with Pleros Therapeutics. See her work and more in this article on VCU News.

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Pictured Above: Michael Hindle, Ph.D.

Two VCU inventors from separate scientific disciplines – pharmaceutics and computer science — were formally recognized in June by the National Academy of Inventors for their contributions to society from their efforts in Richmond.

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The National Academy of Inventors has placed VCU among the top 100 universities in the U.S. for utility patents granted, reflecting VCU’s excellence in innovation and research.

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Curtis Sessler, M.D., a professor in the School of Medicine, created the RASS scale that intensive-care unit clinicians and researchers around the world have used for more than two decades to describe a patient’s level of alertness and agitation.

Read more here

Virginia Commonwealth University is the winner of the 11th annual Innovation & Economic Prosperity Talent award from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. The award recognizes exemplary initiatives in education and workforce development.

Announced during the association’s annual meeting today, VCU’s submission was lauded by the APLU for its “particularly innovative and exemplary” framework for regional economic development and engagement. The award highlights the university’s RTR teacher residency program, da Vinci Center for Innovation and Richmond Health and Wellness Program.

Full story at VCU News

“The initiatives highlighted in this submission are perfect representations of our deep commitment to knowledge creation, innovation and conducting transformative research that tackles our greatest challenges, connects with our communities, reduces disparities and lifts lives. VCU’s TechTransfer and Ventures has been instrumental in advancing several of these university-led innovations to the marketplace, including through startups and overall furthering economic development.”

P. Srirama Rao, Ph.D., vice president for research and innovation

Uses could include surgical robots that better detect minute changes in pressure or temperature, industrial machines that measure air or water flow, a robot that reads braille, or debris detection on a highly sensitive camera lens.

Read more here

From AI to implantable devices, Supriyo Bandyopadhyay pushes the limits at a small but powerful scale.

Read more here

Aerogel innovation from physics professor Massimo Bertino could power an energy-efficient upgrade from fiberglass and other materials.

Read more here

Worth Longest and his team received a $3 million grant to create an aerosolized surfactant - a substance that lowers liquid surface tension - and a device to deliver it.

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“Our new NSF ranking is a direct reflection of our researchers’, staff’s, trainees’ and students’ dedication to answering some of society’s most pressing and challenging questions,” said P. Srirama Rao, Ph.D., vice president for research and innovation at VCU. “As a hub of intellectual curiosity, the transformative and collaborative research conducted here serves as a catalyst for innovation and societal impact within our communities at a local, national and global level.”

Read more (click through for link to VCU news)

VCU’s 2023 Innovator of the Year led a team to create a worldwide scale used in ICUs

Meet the newly retired Curtis N. Sessler, M.D., the Orhan Muren Distinguished Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the VCU School of Medicine. He led the team that created the Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale, a tool used by intensive-care unit clinicians and researchers around the world. For his and his team’s work to create the scale, made available in 2002, Sessler was named the 2023 Billy R. Martin VCU Innovator of the Year.  See how RASS came to be.

Xuewei Wang, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry of the College of Humanities and Sciences, runs a lab that is working to generate inhaled nitric oxide (NO) gas in a cost-effective, compact and safe fashion. See how they’re fine-tuning their process.

Laleh Golshahi, Ph.D., founder and director of the College of Engineering’s Respiratory Aerosol Research and Educational (RARE) laboratory, is studying how different nasal drug delivery products work in different people’s noses. She and her team have developed six nose models — three adult, three pediatric — that can be used by researchers and pharmaceutical companies to determine how aerosolized droplets land inside the nasal passages of millions of people of varying ages, genders and ethnicities. See the casts and meet Laleh.

Figuring out whose DNA is found at the scene of a crime is a routine task for crime labs.

But what kind of tissue is the source of that DNA? And how long has it been there? That’s more difficult to determine. And courts that have historically focused on the “who” increasingly care about the “what” and “how.”

Kate Philpott, a Virginia-based scientific and legal consultant and affiliate faculty in the Department of Forensic Science, and forensics professor Christopher Ehrhardt, Ph.D., are developing a technology to analyze “non-genetic attributes” of cells within forensic evidence. They’ve also created a startup to someday sell their technology to crime labs. Dive deeper into their world.

Supriyo Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D. is breaking new ground in electronics design with tiny hardware and nanomagnet-based antennas. His works hold the promise to revolutionize the circuitry that underpins artificial intelligence, antennas and more. “Supriyo’s research centers on cutting-edge concepts in electronics design,” says Brent Fagg, senior licensing manager at VCU TechTransfer and Ventures. “He is not merely redesigning the way things have been done but completely changing the way electronics components are created and used.” Here’s more.

A VCU research and graduate student currently in VCU’s M.D./Ph.D. program founded a startup with a goal to modify immune responses that underpin allergic reactions and other immunological disorders, leading to longer term reversal of disease. Meet Pleros.

Could a drug used to treat high cholesterol be repurposed to treat eye disorders?

The connection between the two isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds, and Qingguo Xu, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutics at the School of Pharmacy, is on a path to making it work. His lab has formulated a pharmaceutical using fenofibrate, an FDA-approved oral drug used to treat high cholesterol, to hopefully someday treat certain eye diseases. See how.

The results are in. They are phenomenal. And as importantly, they are intentional. 

At no other time in VCU’s history have our researchers and trainees been more widely recognized for their contributions to transformative innovation across the sciences, the arts and the humanities, healthcare, engineering and mathematics. 

And this was all part of our plan...

Our partners at Halo recently interviewed senior licensing manager Brent Fagg.

Here's his interview. 

For several years, VCU TechTransfer and Ventures has supported the creation and development of startup companies based on university IP. Now, we’ve added fuel to that work.

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For the second year, the National Academy of Inventors has ranked Virginia Commonwealth University among the Top 100 universities in the U.S for utility patents granted. The ranking recognizes VCU’s research culture of innovation and commitment to solving real-world problems.

Read more here...

There were six recipients in the spring 2024 round of Commercialization Fund awards from VCU TechTransfer and Ventures. The awards, which collectively total $242,000, support inventors who are conducting valuable translational research with a clear pathway to market.

Read more here...

Every day at Virginia Commonwealth University, faculty researchers are making new discoveries and developing technologies that hold the promise of improving lives and transforming society.

But to take ideas from a laboratory and commercialize them with the hopes of someday seeing their technologies used for good — and hopefully, creating revenue — requires partners beyond the walls of the university and academic medical center.

One of those partners is the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp., or VIPC. A nonprofit state agency, VIPC is the commercialization and seed stage economic development driver in the Commonwealth. Its team leads funding, infrastructure, and policy initiatives to support Virginia's innovators and startups. To support its mission, VIPC collaborates with local, regional, state, and federal partners — among them, VCU TechTransfer and Ventures.

As part of its work, VIPC manages the Commonwealth Commercialization Fund, which provides funding to technologies with a high potential for economic development and job creation. The fund has distributed more than $55 million to Virginia-based startups, entrepreneurs, and university-based inventors since 2012 in support of critical early technology testing and market validation efforts.

Here's a roundup of those companies and inventors that received awards.

A VCU and Central Virginia Veterans Administration (VA) Health Care System urogynecologist won the university’s first Startup Pitch competition for her work on a virtual-reality surgeon training system.

Lauren Siff, M.D. and the team behind SurgicalED VR were awarded $10,000 and in-kind services to develop their technology, test it with academic medical centers, and bring the trainer to market. Siff was one of five faculty entrepreneurs to present their technologies before a panel of six judges and about 50 people from VCU and partner organizations on May 13.

“This Accelerator isn't just about launching something new, it's about amplifying and structuring the support for the amazing work our researchers have been diligently pursuing for years. These researchers have dedicated countless hours to developing the innovative technologies that form the bedrock of their startup ventures. Our teams exemplify VCU's commitment to fostering translational research—research that doesn't just stay in the lab but translates into tangible benefits for human health and well-being." -Brent Fagg, TechTransfer and Ventures’ assistant director of innovation

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In February, we launched VCU’s first Startup Accelerator to fast-track university-borne companies. Those eight-plus weeks of intensive consulting concluded in May with a Shark Tank-style Pitch Day competition for the five participating startups.

Read more here...

The latest edition of launchpad...

Scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Medicine are leading research to find a cure for fibrosis, building off a recent Nobel Prize-winning discovery that has revealed a gateway into the scarring diseases. The team is funded by a $50,000 Commercialization Fund award from the Office of the Vice President of Research and Innovation.

Read more here...

VCU inventors and NAI members, Martin Safo, Ph.D. and Richard Marconi, Ph.D. were inducted as NAI Senior Members on June, 17. 

Pictures included here...