Two CMTM Faculty Awarded BU Ignition Awards

Congratulations to Dr. Bela Suki and Dr. Mark Grinstaff on being awarded 2022 BU Ignition Awards!

Each year, BU Technology Development helps to fast-track promising new efforts by providing up to $75,000 to a few select projects. “There are loads of great ideas on campus, but they often need some help to get to a point where they can eventually be adopted and put to use,” says Mike Pratt, managing director of Technology Development. “Having early, promising research doesn’t necessarily mean that you have the tangible proof required to motivate someone to invest their time or money into the development of a new product or service.” The Ignition Award program helps to bridge that gap, he says. In addition to a financial grant, award winners receive coaching and support to bring their products to market.

For his project, Dr. Suki created a device that uses precision-cut lung slices from organ donors in order to test new drugs in the lab for major respiratory diseases like asthma, emphysema, and fibrosis.

Dr. Grinstaff’s project focuses on developing specially made antibodies that can latch onto a new receptor he discovered on the surface of lung squamous cells, while carrying a payload of chemotherapy drugs—creating molecular homing missiles that hunt down the cancer cells and destroy them.

Read the full article by David Levin on The Brink here.