UMass Amherst Startups, Labs to Feature Prominently at the 15th Annual Massachusetts Life Sciences Innovation Day

Nine UMass Amherst life sciences startups and labs will be featured in Boston on July 21 at the 15th annual Massachusetts Life Sciences Innovation (MALSI) Day, the biggest day for life sciences startups and innovation in the commonwealth. 

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The featured UMass Amherst startups and labs have participated in Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS) venture development programs and/or I-Corps@UMass Amherst programs, which provides training and experience to support students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty and staff teams aiming to transfer technology discoveries into products and services. 

Sharing her insights on strategies to keep building the dream in an evolving financing environment in the panel discussion “Building Beyond the Froth” will be Nele Van Dessel of UMass Amherst biotech startup Ernest Pharmaceuticals, who is one of four startup CEOs selected to participate in the 2 p.m. panel session. Ernest Pharmaceuticals seeks to create a novel bacterial platform to revolutionize the treatment of solid tumors through innovations in intracellular protein delivery that was developed by Van Dessel during her postdoctoral fellowship in Neil Forbes’ Lab. 

Participating in the Poster Pitch session and the opportunity to win $2,000 will be representatives from nine UMass Amherst startups: 

• 3Daughters, a developer of novel self-assembling intrauterine devices for women’s health from technology invented by Carlos Gradil, professor of veterinary and animal sciences;  
• Cyta Therapeutics, novel therapeutics to treat obesity based on the work of chemistry professor S. Thai Thayumanavan; 
• E2-Path, personalized treatment decisions for certain breast cancers developed by D. Joseph Jerry, professor of veterinary and animal sciences; 
• EarlyScreen, a mobile app to detect preschool psychological disorders created by Adam Grabell, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences; 
• ISight, a way to prevent and cure cataracts and presbyopia without surgery created by Murugappan Muthukumar, professor of polymer science and engineering;
• MacFarlane Medical, a simplified way to deliver insulin created by Connor MacFarlane, a senior in chemical engineering, with faculty sponsor Sundar Krishnamurty, professor of mechanical and industrial engineering; 
• Quaesar Therapeutics, technology to detect ovarian cancer co-founded by Anujan Ramesh, a chemical engineering Ph.D. candidate in the lab of assistant professor of chemical engineering Ashish Kulkarni; 
• RNA4Tx, novel manufacturing technology for wide expansion of RNA therapeutics created by chemistry professor Craig Martin; and 
• Suvorov Laboratory, sperm epigenome rejuvenation technology created by Alexander Suvorov, associate professor of environmental health sciences. 

MALSI 2022 will be held at District Hall in Boston. For more information or to register for the event, visit the MALSI Day 2022 website.