Translational Seed Award Recipients

Recipients will be designated Translational Innovation Fellows.

• Prabhani Atukorale, assistant professor of biomedical engineering; 
  Super Vax: Cancer vaccinations with “super adjuvant” nanoparticles
• Caitlyn Butler, professor of civil and environmental engineering; 
  Phos-For-Us: A novel platform to remove excess phosphorus from wastewater
• Lili He, professor of food science; 
  Hertz Innovative Tech: Detecting bacteria on surfaces using a smartphone microscope
• Jungwoo Lee, associate professor of chemical engineering; 
  MetaBone: Human bone organoids to screen for therapeutics
• Lynne McLandsborough, professor of food science; 
  Dry Food Solutions: Oil Sanitizer for “dry cleaning” food preparation plants
• Yubing Sun, associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering; 
  Above Nerves: 3D human brain models for drug discovery and toxicology
• Thai Thayumanavan, professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering; 
  Polytacs: “Protein scissors” to treat lung cancer

Recipients will be designated Manning/IALS Innovation Fellows.

• Ernest Pharmaceuticals  – Neil Forbes
  Chemical engineering, College of Engineering
  Programmed Bacteria to Destroy Cancer
• Latde – Sloan Siegrist
  Microbiology, College of Natural Sciences
  Accessible, Rapid Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing Using Lateral Flow Detection of Metabolic Labeling
• Organicin Scientific  – Margaret Riley
  Biology, College of Natural Sciences
  Fermentation-Based Production of Kilogram Quantities of Bacteriocins for Field Trial Testing
• SkyRayBio – Min Chen
  Chemistry, College of Natural Sciences
  Development of a Nanopore Platform for Selective Screening of Allosteric Inhibitors Against Protein Kinases
• TBD Medical  – Govind Srimathveeravilli
  Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering
  Device and Technology for Prostate Biopsy
• The Skouta Lab (Newco/Licensing) – Rachid Skouta
  Biology and Chemistry, College of Natural Sciences
  Novel Ferroptosis Inducer Drug Candidate to Target RAS-Positive Tumors

• Hasentech – Barbara Osborne and Lisa Minter
  Veterinary and Animal Sciences, College of Natural Sciences
  A Novel Cell-Based Therapy for Graft-versus-Host Disease
• ISight – Murugappan Muthukumar
  Polymer Science and Engineering, College of Natural Sciences 
  Curing and Preventing Cataracts and Presbyopia Without Surgery
• Latde – Sloan Siegrist
  Microbiology, College of Natural Sciences
  Rapid, Low-cost Diagnostic for Bloodborne Bacterial Infections
• Marieb-IV – Karen Giuliano and Juan Jimenez
  Elaine Marieb College of Nursing, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering
  A Novel IV Pole to Improve the Safety of IV Medication Administration During Acute Care Hospitalization
• NaturaFloc – Chul Park
  Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering
  Low Cost, Enhanced Auto-Clarification in Wastewater Treatment 
• Optical Waters – Mariana Lopes
  Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering 
  Germicidal Optical Fibers to Prevent Disease-causing Biofilms in Endoscopes

• 3Daughters - Carlos Gradil
  Veterinary and Animal Sciences, College of Natural Sciences
  A Women’s Healthcare startup developing a new ergonomic, pain-free, magnetic intrauterine device (IUD).
• E2-PATH - Karen Dunphy/Joe Jerry
  Veterinary and Animal Sciences, College of Natural Sciences
  A diagnostic personalized medicine screening platform for selecting optimized breast cancer treatments.
• OPG Wastewater Treatment - Chul Park
  Civil & Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering 
  Developing technology that enables aeration-free and energy efficient wastewater treatment.
• Optical Waters - Mariana Lopes
  Civil & Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering  
  Germicidal Optical Fibers to Prevent Disease Causing Biofilms in Medical Devices
• RNA4Therapeutics - Craig Martin
  Chemistry, College of Natural Sciences 
  A novel manufacturing technology for the synthesis of high purity, low-cost, and large scale RNA manufacturing for therapeutic use.
• Volvox Sciences - Ashish Kulkarni
  Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering
  Developing a novel supramolecular nano-therapeutic (CSF-SNT) that can efficiently remove cancer tumor cells.

• Barbara Osborne
  Veterinary and Animal Sciences, College of Natural Sciences 
  Developing Novel Therapeutics to Treat Inflammatory Bowel Disease by a Bacterial Exopolysaccharides.
• David Julian McClements
  Food Sciences, College of Natural Sciences
  Nutriply – a start-up developing probiotics in gummy form, making them easier to use.  
• Sloan Siegrist
  Microbiology, College of Natural Sciences
  Developing a diagnostic for detecting blood-borne pathogenic bacteria (sepsis).
• Neil Forbes
  Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering
  Demonstrate efficacy of a novel bacterial therapeutic - EBT-302 - for treatment of liver cancer” for start-up Ernest Pharmaceuticals.  
• Amir Arbabi
  Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering
  "Metasurface-enabled miniature LIDAR systems” for robotics, automatic guided vehicles, and integration into smartphones.
• James Allan
  Computer Sciences, College of Information and Computer Sciences
  Software tools aimed at “Explaining contradictory claims in the biomedical/healthcare domain”.

• Derek Lovley
  Microbiology, College of Natural Sciences
  Fabricating Protein Nanowires for Unique Sensing Capabilities
• Jeanne Hardy
  Chemistry, College of Natural Sciences
  Development of Potent Zika Virus Protease Inhibitors
• S. “Thai” Thayumanavan
  Chemistry, College of Natural Sciences
  Pre-Clinical efficacy evaluation of liver-targeted, thyromimetic-encapsulated IntelliGels for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).
• Neil St. John Forbes
  Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering
  Bacterial delivery of therapeutic peptides to treat advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
• Shelly Peyton
  Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering
  “GelTech” to enable tissue-specific drug discovery and help eliminate potential false-positive hits from screening.
• Madalina Fiterau Brostean
  Computer Sciences, College of Information and Computer Sciences
  4Thought: Unlocking Insights into Your Mental Health