MassVentures Announces $195,000 in Seed Funding for Faculty Research Projects – CMTM Member Mark Grinstaff Recipient
Acorn Innovation Fund Aids in Commercializing Scientific Breakthroughs Across the Commonwealth
Source: MassVentures Jan. 19, 2022
The Commonwealth’s strategic venture capital team, MassVentures, announces today the award of $195,000 in seed funding to Massachusetts research institutions to help them bring new technologies closer to market.
Twelve grants of $16,250 each were awarded to faculty researchers from Boston VA Healthcare, Boston University; Northeastern University; MIT; the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth and Lowell; Tufts University and Western New England University to assist them in testing the viability of their technologies and potentially bringing their research to market.
CMTM Faculty Mark Grinstaff and MGH Faculty Yolands Colson were among those chosen for a MassVentures Innovation Fund award for their project “Novel Antibody-Drug Conjugates for Squamous Cell Carcinoma Treatment.” The grant will help fund Dr. Grinstaff and Dr. Colson in developing a novel, emerging class of anti-cancer therapeutics, called antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, which accounts for 85 percent of lung cancer and has low 5-year survival rates. ADCs are designed to kill tumor cells with minimal effect on healthy tissue. While ten ADCs have been approved for treatment of other cancers, none have yet been approved for lung cancer.
The Acorn Awards are funded by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and overseen by MassVentures. “These awards help bring promising research to market for the benefit of the Commonwealth, which is central to our economic development mission,” said UMass System Chancellor for Academic Programs & Senior Vice President for Economic Development, Katherine Newman. “We are thankful to the Legislature for establishing the Commonwealth’s Innovation Commercialization Seed Fund, which makes these grants available.”
Selected from a field of 37 applicants, the recipients were chosen for their project’s technical merit, commercial viability, project plan and strength of team, according to Vinit Nijhawan, managing director of MassVentures. The majority of projects selected are life science or medical innovations and span from novel therapeutics to treat lung cancer, to AI applications that facilitate outpatient rehabilitation via telemedicine, to modular bioreactors that allow for distributed and affordable production of medications.
Several projects were also chosen that focus on novel surveillance technology, such as for remote monitoring of civil infrastructure integrity (roads and bridges) and real-time surveillance of roadways for traffic incidents.
“The strength of the selected projects and diversity of academic researchers demonstrates that Massachusetts leads the nation in translating basic research to the market,” Nijhawan said.
See the full list of recipients and projects here.