UMass hands out $250K in research grants; 3 go to UMass Amherst faculty
Published: 06-21-2023 2:53 PM |
BOSTON — New technologies aimed at improving prostate cancer diagnosis, enhancing employment services for job seekers with disabilities, and optimizing clinical use treatments for melanoma patients could get closer to market thanks to $250,000 in seed funding recently announced by the University of Massachusetts.
Ten faculty research projects will each receive up to $25,000 from the Technology Development Fund, an initiative which helps to commercialize scientific breakthroughs throughout the five-campus UMass. The fund is overseen by the Office of Technology Commercialization and Ventures (OTCV) at the UMass President’s Office in Boston.
The awards provide supplemental funding to help close the gap between UMass research discoveries and proven technology that address local, national and global challenges.
“These faculty innovations showcase how UMass continues to realize long-term growth and achievement in its commercialization enterprise,” said Carl Rust, executive director of Industry Engagement and Business Development, who oversees the OTCV initiative.
Since 2004, UMass has invested $3 million in faculty research and development projects through the Technology Development Fund. Projects are chosen for their commercial viability, in hopes that development of the technology will lead to a startup company or licensing agreement. Funding for the annual awards comes from commercial licensing income on previous faculty discoveries.
This year’s recipients include:
■Amir Arbabi, College of Engineering, UMass Amherst
This project is developing a low-cost prototype of programmable photonic chips set by micro and nanoscale. Academic and industry have pursued various approaches for reconfiguring photonic chips, but they have been hindered by their high-power consumption, large device footprints, and limited reconfigurability. The proposed reconfigurable PICs enable highly desirable devices and systems such as lidar transceivers, large switches for optical communications, optical quantum computers, and AI accelerators.
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■Siyuan Rao, Institute for Applied Life Sciences, UMass Amherst
This project aims to provide a better soft materials solution for recording neural activity and administering drugs in mobile nerve regions. These hydrogel-based neural probes will be used for long-term electrophysiological recordings in injured spinal cords, with their soft hydrogel structure matching the mechanical properties of nerve tissues. This enables signal collection during movement, facilitating tracking of spinal cord recovery and testing pharmacological interventions. Funding from the OTCV development fund would support these studies and further research into human spinal cord injury treatments.
■Govind Srimathveeravalli, College of Engineering, UMass Amherst
This team’s technology generates a “liquid sample” which will allow physicians to extract biopsy samples from entire tumor volumes in a predictable fashion. This first-of-its-kind device improves prostate cancer diagnosis among the growing population of men who will experience the disease. The proposed work will perform refinements to the waveform used for extracting the genomic material from cells, with the goal of making our technique suitable for use in office-based clinic settings with minimal sedation requirements.
This proposed activity will be coupled with ongoing translational testing of our prototype device with clinical partners. Short-term goals are focused on a startup company to license the technology for commercialization.