IALS

Aclarity
  • IALS | Venture Development 

Aclarity Secures $16M In Series A Funding To Deploy Low Energy PFAS "Forever Chemical" Destruction Solution

Aclarity, a start-up supported by the IALS Venture Development program, successfully completed its Series A funding round, raising $15.9 million. Aclarity is a water technology company that quickly and safely destroys dangerous contaminants in water at the industrial scale and is the leader in PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances) "forever chemical" destruction.

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ADDFab Gets Creative to Print 29-Inch Black Sea Bass
  • IALS | Core Facilities 

ADDFab Gets Creative to Print 29-Inch Black Sea Bass

Advanced Digital Design and Fabrication (ADDFab) Core Facility Director Dave Follette and Intern Simon Brooks, Mechanical Engineering ‘25, were approached by a client about a rather interesting project — they were asked to develop a 29-inch model of a black sea bass.

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ADDFab's Partnership With FORGE Helps Small Business Create Prototype
  • IALS | Core Facilities 

ADDFab's Partnership With FORGE Helps Small Business Create Prototype

FORGE, a nonprofit helping innovators achieve commercialization and impact, connected the Advanced Digital Design and Fabrication (ADDFab) core facility with Kimberly Cook, founder of Cooked Up Ideas, to create a device that would keep flags from becoming tangled. Together, Cook and ADDFab have created a star-shaped flag weight that will prevent flags from becoming twisted and torn in the wind.

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Alicia Timme-Laragy, PhD
  • IALS | M2M 

Alicia Timme-Laragy Offers Expertise to National Academies Committee on Role of Seafood in Child Development

Alicia Timme-Laragy, professor of environmental health sciences, Models to Medicine Center, whose research focuses on developmental toxicology and environmental pollutants, recently served as an expert consultant for the National Academies Committee for their study, “The Role of Seafood in Child Growth and Development,” for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

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Core Summer Internship Program
  • IALS | Core Facilities 

Applications Are Now Open for the 2024 Core Summer Internship Program

We are now accepting applications for the IALS Undergraduate Core Summer Internship (CSI) Program, Summer 2024! The CSI Program aims to provide hands-on experiential research & technical training with the UMass Core Facilities to UMass undergraduate students from Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). 

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BioRender
  • Create Professional Science Figures in Minutes 

BioRender

All IALS affiliated labs have free access to BioRender Premium, thanks to the support derived from IALS-tagged grants. This is a great resource to help create graphics, enhance visual communications, stand out from others, and improve figures for grants/manuscripts.

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Xheme
  • IALS | Core Facilities 

Cell Culture Core Facility Testing Validates Xheme's Promising XMAs

Xheme, a specialty materials company based at the UMass Amherst Mount Ida Campus in Newton and affiliated with the UMass Innovation Institute (UMII), has developed a non-toxic programmable powder to make “smarter” plastics and coatings. Xheme Multifunctional Additives (XMAs), which can be customized based on application, boast a range of promising uses, from the next generation of blood storage bags to paint that is more resistant to fungus and fading.

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Charlene Coleman Retires After Over 8 Years With IALS
  • IALS | Core Facilities 

Charlene Coleman Retires After Over 8 Years With IALS

Congratulations to Charlene Coleman, former Core Facilities Accountant, as she begins a new adventure in retirement! Charlene was a beloved member of the IALS Administration Team and will be missed by all who had the pleasure of working with her.

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Metalense Technology
  • IALS | CPHM 

CPHM's James Watkins Receives $5M MassTech Award to Help Accelerate Development and Adoption of Emerging Metalense Technology

Virtual reality and augmented reality (AR/VR) smart glasses, automobile Lidar, cell phone camera lenses, night vision, terrain mapping, and facial recognition — all are technologies dramatically improved by metalenses. Metalenses are extremely thin optical structures that combine multiple functions of traditional and bulky curved optics into an ultracompact package and are key to enabling a wide range of next-generation products in consumer, health care, aerospace, and defense markets.

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Dmitry Kireev, PhD
  • IALS | CPHM 

Dmitry Kireev Receives NSF Grant for Sweat-Analyzing Temporary Tattoo Research

Dmitry Kireev and his team have received an award to develop a new type of sweat monitor that can be applied to the skin just like a temporary tattoo and assess the molecules present, such as cortisol. The tattoos will ultimately give individuals better insight into their health and serve as a tool for researchers to discover new early indications of diseases.

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Forbes Lab Salmonella
  • IALS | CBD | Venture Development 

Ernest Pharmaceuticals Research Examines if Immunity from Routine Vaccines can be used to Fight Cancer

Ernest Pharmaceuticals, an IALS startup, team has demonstrated in theory that a protein antigen from a childhood vaccine can be delivered into the cells of a malignant tumor to refocus the body’s immune system against the cancer, effectively halting it and preventing its recurrence. The bacteria-based intracellular delivering (ID) system uses a non-toxic form of Salmonella that releases a drug, in this case a vaccine antigen, after it’s inside a solid-tumor cancer cell.

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florrent
  • IALS | Venture Development 

florrent Raises $2.1 Million to Produce Bio-Derived Ultracapacitor Activated Carbon

IALS Collaboratories occupant florrent announced the successful close of their Pre-Seed fundraising round, which secured $2.1M of catalytic capital to bring their transformative energy storage solution to the world and realize the impact of their mission. These funds will enable florrent to begin outfitting their pilot manufacturing facility, where they will be scaling the production of their next-generation ultracapacitor activated carbon material, as well as invest in critical R&D equipment and build out their team of scientists, engineers, and professionals.

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2023 Best Scientists Researchcom
  • IALS | CBD | CPHM | M2M 

Four UMass Amherst Researchers Named in 2023 “Best Scientists in the World” Ranking By Research.com

Four UMass Amherst faculty scholars representing a range of disciplines in the natural and health sciences have been recognized nationally and globally in Research.com’s 2023 list of top scientists and also earned high rankings in their specific fields of research. All four of these researchers are affiliated with an IALS Research Center, with all three Centers being represented on this list.

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CPHM health tech for the people
  • IALS | CPHM 

Health Tech for the People Announces Spring 2024 Graduate Student Fellows

Health Tech for the People (HT4P), funded by IALS/CPHM, is a new thrust focusing on the ethics of technology and accountable, human-centered design, evaluation and translation of health monitoring technologies for the public interest. This research foci incubates interdisciplinary and community-led teams and technologies in the domains of aging care and reproductive health.

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Krishna Live Cell Protein Labeling
  • IALS | CBD | CPHM | M2M 

IALS Announces Inaugural Graduate Student Fellows for 2024

IALS is excited to announce the inaugural one-year translational Graduate Student Fellows for 2024! 

We define translational research as work that aims to inform or to develop product candidates, technologies, and services that deliver benefits to human health and well-being.

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Elena Pobezinskaya
  • IALS | CBD | IALS Interview Series 

IALS Interview with Elena Pobezinskaya

Elena Pobezinskaya is a faculty member in the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences and member of the Center for Bioactive Delivery and the Models to Medicine Center.

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MassAITC
  • IALS | CPHM | Core Facilities 

IALS Partner MassAITC Is Improving the Lives of Older Adults Through AI

According to the United States Census, the population of adults over age 65 has spiked in the past decade, reaching more than 55 million people—or over 1 in 6 people in the country—in 2020. The vast majority of older Americans would prefer to stay in their homes as they age, but for many, chronic illness, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related dementias, make this out of reach without substantial support.

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2021 Research Image Competition Winners
  • IALS 

IALS Research Image Competition Returns After a Year’s Hiatus

IALS is pleased to share that we will once again be running our Research Image Competition! If you have a great research image and want to win one of our awesome prizes, then this competition is for you. Submissions are open now and will remain open through Wednesday, July 26 - we can’t wait to see your images.

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Michael Busa, PhD
  • IALS | Core Facilities 

IALS Researchers and REOFTech Receive Funding to Train AI to Support the Relationship Between Alzheimer’s Disease Patients and Their Caregivers

Michael Busa, director for the Center for Human Health and Performance and technology and consulting company, REOFTech, have been awarded $280,000 from Mass AITC to conduct a pilot study to develop a new at-home technology platform to help patients and their caretakers manage Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD).

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Daniel Hebert - Mass Spectrometry
  • IALS | M2M 

M2M’s Daniel Hebert Uses Mass Spectrometry to Unlock Cellular Code on Protein Folding, Opening Therapeutic Avenues for Many Diseases

While we often think of diseases as caused by foreign bodies—bacteria or viruses—there are hundreds of diseases affecting humans that result from errors in cellular production of its proteins. A team of UMass researchers recently leveraged the power of cutting-edge technology to unlock the carbohydrate-based code that governs how certain classes of proteins form themselves into the complex shapes necessary to keep us healthy.

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Jeanne Hardy and Jasna Fejzo
  • IALS | M2M | Core Facilities 

NMR Core Facility Receives $4.4 Million from MLSC for Advanced Atomic Resolution Instrument

IALS has received more than $4.4 million from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) to acquire an 800 MHz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometer. This high-field atomic resolution instrument will aid researchers working to develop the next generation of drugs to treat high unmet-need diseases, including various types of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

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NSF Accelerating Research Translation (ART)
  • IALS | Venture Development 

NSF Accelerating Research Translation Award Brings New Resources to Campus Innovators

A team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS), Technology Transfer Office, Office of Research & Engagement and the Office of the Provost has won a $5.5 million Accelerating Research Translation (ART) award from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to support and expand faculty and student researchers’ efforts to translate research conducted in campus laboratories into tangible solutions to real-world problems. 

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Provost Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, IALS Director Peter Reinhart, NSF Program Director Pradeep Fulay, and Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement Mike Malone
  • IALS 

NSF Program Director Pradeep Fulay Visits UMass Amherst

Dr. Pradeep Fulay, Program Director for the Directorate for Technology and Partnerships at the National Science Foundation (NSF), came for a site visit to learn what UMass Amherst Accelerating Research Translation (ART) has been doing to accelerate translational research on campus.

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Opening Reception-IALS/Building Bridges Special Projects Installation and Random Acts of Kindness

4:00 pm - LSL S330-340, Conference Center

As the Building Bridges team prepares for its eighth annual Showcase Event, the initiative's Worker Artists Group is launching their annual Random Acts of Kindness Through Art (RAK) campaign. This year, the campaign will launch in conjunction with the opening reception of a special projects installation at the Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS). This special installation features the creative work of 12 Building Bridges Worker Artists and can be viewed in the Life Science Laboratories.  

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Practical Cognitive Assessment Methods for AD/ADRD Research Projects

4:00 pm - ZOOM

Speakers: Michael Busa (CH2P), Kathryn Pap, Harvard Med School and Ipsit Vahia, McLean Hospital. Hosted by MassAITC this webinar session will focus on the topic of cognitive assessments and their importance for Alzheimer's Disease and Alzheimer's Disease Related Dementia (AD/ADRD) research.

Ravi Ranjan, PhD
  • IALS | Core Facilities 

Ravi Ranjan Presents at Advances in Genome Biology and Technology Conference

Genomics Resource Laboratory Director Ravi Ranjan recently presented at the 2024 Advances in Genome Biology and Technology General Meeting in Orlando, Florida. The presentation, “Streamlined for speed: NEBNext UltraExpress for DNA and RNA library prep,” helped address challenges pertaining to next generation sequencing (NGS) applications. 

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Funding

Research Funding Opportunities for IALS Faculty

IALS Midigrants

The IALS midigrant is designed to be a flexible seed fund mechanism up to $20,000 to enable new translational research and explore new collaborations within IALS. All active faculty members of IALS may apply for funds. 

Mission of the Institute for Applied Life Sciences
The mission of IALS is to translate fundamental research into innovative product candidates, technologies, and services that deliver benefits to human health and well-being. 

What is Translation?
Translation is the process of turning observations in the laboratory, clinic and community into interventions that improve the health of individuals and the public — from diagnostics and therapeutics to medical procedures and behavioral changes.

To apply, please visit: https://www.umass.edu/ials/funding-benefits

Manning/IALS Innovation Awards
The Manning/IALS Innovation Awards provide seed funding up to $100,000 per award. These awards are designed to help advance UMass Amherst translational and applied R&D through the development of startup companies or the out-licensing of UMass IP.

Significant funding for this program comes from a gift from the Manning Family Foundation, and from the IALS Seed fund program. Additional contributions come from the College of Natural Sciences, the Berthiaume Center, the Isenberg School of Management, and the Office of Development and Alumni Relations.

To apply, please visit: https://www.umass.edu/ials/funding-benefits

Shipworms
  • IALS 

Researchers Led By UMass Use Genetic Probe Microscopy to Solve 2000-Year-Old Mystery of the Shipworm

A team of researchers, jointly led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Plymouth, along with collaborators from the University of Maine and UMass Chan Medical School, have discovered that a population of symbiotic microbes, living in an overlooked sub-organ of the gut called the “typhlosole,” have the ability to secrete the enzymes needed to digest lignin — the toughest part of wood.

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Special Seminar-Learn How to Better Support Alzheimer's and Dementia Participants in Your Research

11:00 am - LSL S330-340 and ZOOM

Meghan Lemay, Regional Manager of Alzheimer's Association of Western MA, joins us for a presentation on understanding Alzheimer's disease and dementia, including current treatments and risk factors. The program will also provide tips on how to better interact and communicate with individuals living with dementia. You will also learn about resources available to support families impacted by Alzheimer's disease or dementia.