Grinstaff Receives BU’s First “Innovator of the Year” Award
Professor Mark W. Grinstaff has won the inaugural Innovator of the Year Award from BU’s Office of Technology Development, recognizing a faculty member who translates research into innovations that benefit humankind. The Innovator of the Year Award seeks to highlight translational research at BU by recognizing an entrepreneurial faculty member and the potential for commercialization and/or wider adoption of their inventions. It also encourages faculty to become entrepreneurial while promoting role models who can inspire graduate students to pursue entrepreneurial careers.
Professor Grinstaff, who has joint appointments in Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering, co-founded three companies now commercializing his research ideas: Hyperbranch Medical Technology, Flex Biomedical, and recent start-up Acuity Bio that is commercializing a new drug delivery device for the prevention of tumor recurrence after surgical resection – a significant unmet clinical need. His current work includes research into new macromolecule and amphiphile syntheses, self-assembly chemistry, tissue engineering, and drug delivery. As he presented the award, President Bob Brown said that “Professor Grinstaff is an entrepreneurial scientist, whose practical approach to science has led to the formation of three companies producing beneficial products … His accomplishments in the past year include 15 peer-reviewed papers published, two invention disclosures, a patent filing, and more than $1 million invested in Flex Biomedical.”
Professor Grinstaff received a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois and was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology. His honors include the ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award, NSF Career Award, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, and the Edward M. Kennedy Award for Health Care Innovation.