Food scientists awarded $25k to help commercialize research
A research project in the Food Science Department is one of seven across the University system sharing $175,000 in grants from the President’s Office aimed at accelerating commercialization of early-stage technologies.
The $25,000 grants from the Commercial Ventures & Intellectual Property (CVIP) Technology Development Fund were announced March 30 by President Jack M. Wilson.
The selected technologies are seen as the breakthroughs with the most significant chance of being commercially successful from dozens of faculty submissions for support from the Fund.
Food scientists Hang Xiao, D. Julian McClements, Eric A. Decker and Yeonhwa Park received one of the grants for their project, “Colon-specific Delivery Systems Based on Nanolaminated Dietary Fiber Coating of Encapsulated Bioactive Compounds.” The team has developed a novel technology for encapsulating bioactive compounds in nanolaminated biopolymer membranes, which has marked benefits over existing technologies for colon-specific delivery via oral route for prevention and treatment of colorectal diseases. The primary purpose of the project is to bridge the gap between the basic work of developing the technology in the laboratory and the application work needed to demonstrate the practical use of the technology in the food and pharmaceutical industries.
Other recipients have developed technologies that can potentially impact a wide variety of fields —from metallic inks for flexible electronics to nano-shell catalysts for fuel cell applications and novel HIV protease inhibitors.
“These grants allow the University to support faculty-developed inventions with the potential to drive the economy and change people’s lives. Throughout our nation’s history, breakthroughs made in university labs have shaped our social and economic development and spurred economic growth,” said Wilson. “The results of previous grant awards have shown this funding has considerable impact—these technology development grants come at a critical time for faculty undertaking the complex process of guiding a breakthrough from the lab to the marketplace.”
Wilson established the UMass CVIP Technology Development Fund in 2004. Over the past six years, the fund has made a total of 41 awards to faculty from all five campuses for technology commercialization, resulting in the creation of several new companies, new licenses and more than $3 million in additional research funding for the recipients.
In total, over the past six years, 12 out of 41 awardees obtained a patent, executed a license or formed a new spin-off company.
Over the past year, three previous UMass CVIP Technology Development Fund grant recipients founded spin-off companies. Assistant professor of Chemical Engineering George Huber founded Anellotech this year based on technology addressing catalytic conversion of biomass to industrial chemicals and Medical School professor Babs Soller’s company, Reflectance Medical, formed in 2008, is in the process of receiving venture funding. In addition, Wesfolk Corp. was incorporated in 2008 to commercialize a portfolio of scien?tific work conducted by Eric A. Decker, D. Julian McClements and Jochen Weiss involving advanced emulsion technology for the food and beverage industry. Decker, McClements and Weiss received a grant in 2007 and McClements and Decker are awardees this year.
The grants process is managed by the Office of Commercial Ventures and Intellectual Property (CVIP), headed by executive director William Rosenberg. The awards are funded with technology licensing revenue supplemented by funds from the UMass President’s Office.
The grant funds will be used for proof of principle work and will support additional lab testing, building of prototypes and animal and pharmacology studies. Funding for this type of development is not available from research grants and is critical to advancing technologies from the laboratory to commercialization.
More Information
President's Office announcement
April 1, 2009.
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