Posts filed under ‘Uncategorized’
Pin Drop wins GRA/TAG 2011Business Launch Competition
Pin Drop, a startup which provides a reliable and robust Caller-ID alternative to secure phone transactions, is the winner of the 2011 Business Launch Competition. The company will take home $50,000 cash prize and some $200,ooo in donated services.
Selecting the winner was an all-star panel of venture capitalists and investors from across the nation including Bob Bozeman, General Partner, Angel Investors, LP – San Francisco, CA; John Glushik, Investment Team, Intersouth Partners – Durham, NC; Wayne Hunter, Managing Partner, Harbert Management Corporation – Birmingham, AL; Allen Moseley, Partner, Noro-Moseley Partners – Atlanta, GA; Tripp Rackley, Senior Vice President, Qualcomm – Atlanta, GA; Ron Verni, former CEO of Sage Software.
Now in its sixth year, the GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition supports Georgia’s startup community by helping local entrepreneurs launch their businesses. Since its founding, the contest has become one of the largest of its kind in the nation, providing a total of $450,000 in cash and more than $1,000,000 in donated services and mentoring more 130 Georgia entrepreneurs.
Georgia Tech forms Electronic/Nanotech Institute
Georgia Tech Executive Vice President for Research Stephen Cross today announced the formation of the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN). According to Cross, IEN will consolidate multiple electronics and nanotechnology research centers and programs to leverage existing research expertise and resources.
To be led by Executive Director Mark Allen, IEN will enhance and support programs in biomedicine, materials, electronics and nanotechnology. Over the past 15 years, the Georgia Research Alliance has helped to recruit a cadre of GRA Eminent Scholars in these areas and has invested in a wide array of sophisticated research tools. Read more >
Perfecting the sandwich bun
Sandwich buns don’t usually spring to mind as a subject of cutting-edge research. But consistency in the baking process has been a challenge.
Flowers Industries in Tifton, Georgia, is known worldwide as an innovator in the the baking industry. For the past year, Flowers has been working with the Georgia Tech Research Institute to automate systems for production and quality control of sandwich buns. The program has had excellent results, allowing automated inspection of the product as it bakes and adjusting oven temperature as needed. Read more>
Helping industry save $$$
Sentrinsic, a GRA VentureLab company, is helping industry save energy and reduce costs. The company developed and sells “special sensor technology for managing fluids running through heavy duty industrial pumps in large scale industrial systems.” Based on technology originated at Georgia Tech, the company was propelled by early GRA VentureLab grants and an investment from the GRA Venture Fund, LLC. The Atlanta Business Chronicle featured the company’s success in last week’s edition. See below.
Sentrinsic sensors equal energy, cash savings
By Doug DeLoach
Contributing Writer
With the cost of doing business on the rise in many industries, energy conservation and savings have becomee more critical than ever — a fact that’s spurred one local company to carve out a market niche.
Started in 2008 by three Georgia Tech graduates, Atlanta-based Sentrinsic Inc. developed a special sensor technology for managing fluids running through heavy-duty industrial pumps in large-scale industrial systems.
The energy savings resulting from implementing Sentrinsic’s sensors can be as much as 50 percent or more, depending on the application. In an industrial setting, the level of savings performance can amount to hundreds of thousands — even millions of dollars over time.
Company founders CEO Mike Orndorff, Chief Operating Officer David Beck and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Haihong Zhu met at Tech. The two MBA students were looking for a project with commercial potential: Zhu’s modeling program was deemed a likely candidate.
As the project progressed, Zhu’s program for calculating physical properties and effects of certain materials proved too costly to produce. However, the group decided a new type of sensor developed for the project would be relatively easy and cost-effective to manufacture.
The sensor became the flagship product of a new company, which was entered into the 2005 Georgia Tech Business Plan Competition/ After taking first place in the Most Fundable category and earning a $15,000 service package, Sentrinsic was on its way.
In the beginning, Sentrinsic encountered entrenched and conservative product development companies, which were reluctant to adopt the Sentrinsic sensor.
“They would rather endure the headache of working with a product that might be inferior in terms of its performance rather than risk their reputation on a startup,” Orndorff said. The solution was to partner up with IDEX Corp., one of the largest and best-known industry firms, which was open to exploring the potential benefits of the Sentrinsic technology.
The two companies worked out a developmental partnership. Sentrinsic’s patented position feedback system is now embedded in IDEX’s energy-efficient, AirVantage products.
“We originally chose to work with Sentrinsic because we recognized their expertise in control systems and new product development,” said Mark McCourt, director of innovation at IDEX. “We’ve continued to work with them because they’ve delivered on their promises.”
“Another factor in Sentrinsic’s success was early assistance and mentoring through VentureLab, a Georgia Rsearch Alliance program. “Sentrinsic is somewhat of a poster child for us,” said Mike Cassidy, GRA CEO and president.
Researchers and GRA VentureLab startup collaborate on new treatment option for ovarian cancer
According to a posting on the Georgia Tech Newsroom Web page, researchers are exploring the use of magnetic nanoparticles engineered to capture cancer cells and the use of an outside-the-body filtration system to remove the captured cancer cells. John McDonald, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Biology and chief research scientist of the Ovarian Cancer Institute and postdoctoral fellow Ken Scarberry are developing the system with GRA VentureLab company Sub-Micro. The Georgia Research Alliance also has provided support for the underlying research.
In mice with free-floating ovarian cancer cells, a single treatment with an early prototype of the nanoparticle-magnetic filtration system captured enough of the cancer cells that the treated mice lived nearly a third longer than untreated ones. The researchers expect multiple treatments to extend the longevity benefit, though additional research will be needed to document that — and determine the best treatment options.
The researchers hope to have a prototype circulation and filtration device ready for testing within three years. After that will come studies into the best treatment regimen, examining such issues as the number of magnetic nanoparticles to use, the number of treatments and treatment spacing. If those are successful, the company will work with the FDA to design human clinical trials. Read more>
Molecules on the move
GRA Eminent Scholar Jeff Skolnick and his colleagues at Georgia Tech are using large-scale computer simulations to identify key factors affecting how molecules move within cells. Understanding in detail inactions in the crowded environment within cells is a step that may lead to vital information for developing new therapeutic drugs and for better understanding how disease states develop. The researchers hope ultimately to develop a complete simulation of cellular processes. For a detailed look at their work, see John Toon’s article “Traffic in Cells” in Georgia Tech’s Research Horizons magazine (p 20-21).
MCG researchers exploring spice and dye as treatment for traumatic brain injury
According to a news release from the Medical College of Georgia, an old Indian spice and a dye whose cousin makes sports drinks blue are pointing scientists toward a better treatment for traumatic brain injuries or TBIs. These injuries are rampant in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, occur on football fields and roadways and result in brain swelling that causes cell damage and symptoms ranging from headaches and confusion to seizures, slurred speech and death.
Vital research like this has been helped by investments from the Georgia Research Alliance in sophisticated research tools and world-renowned scientists who are part of the MCG Institute of Neuroscience. The Institute’s director is GRA Eminent Scholar Robert Yu. Other GRA Eminent Scholars at MCG who focus on the neurosciences are Lin Mei, a neurobiologist who investigates schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, and Joe Tsien, an expert in memory.
For the full TBI story, follow this link.
A 200:1 Return
Mike Cassidy is President and CEO of the Georgia Research Alliance. Lee Herron is GRA’s Vice President of Commercialization. The GRA VentureLab program fosters the commercialization of university research.
From: Prausnitz, Mark R
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 2:58 PM
To: Mike Cassidy; Lee Herron
Subject: VentureLab grant with a 200-to-1 return on investment
Dear Mike and Lee,
I am writing to let you know how a Phase I VentureLab grant has directly enabled us to receive a $10 million grant from NIH [the National Institutes of Health]. During 2009, we received Phase 1a and Phase 1b support from VentureLab, which we used mostly to generate product development, manufacturing and regulatory strategies for a microneedle patch for influenza vaccination. We also obtained quotes for GMP manufacturing, GLP toxicology studies, regulatory guidance through an IND and other work.
When NIH announced a new major funding opportunity last fall to support development of a novel biomedical technology through a Phase I clinical trial, we were ready to respond. Because we had already done much of the groundwork preparing for commercialization through a clinical trial, we were able to put together a high quality proposal within the few-month timeframe before the due date. We were only able to do this because of the advance work enabled by the VentureLab funding. We would not have been able to respond to the solicitation if we had not already done that work.
The result is that the NIH has awarded us $10 million over five years to develop a novel dissolving microneedle patch, manufacture it under GMP and obtain IND approval from the FDA, and carry out a Phase I clinical trial on influenza vaccination at Emory’s Hope Clinic. It is no exaggeration to say that we could not have even applied, let alone received, this award without the VentureLab funding to prime the pump. (Moreover, if the Global Center for Medical Innovation has suitable capabilities within our timeframe, we may do the GMP manufacturing there.)
We are leveraging this understanding of the pathways to commercialization and to the clinic in other ways too. We recently responded to a significant funding opportunity from the Russian government to develop a microneedle patch for diagnostic purposes through clinical trial and toward forming a company around the technology (in Russia…). We are finalizing a proposal with colleagues at Southern Research Institute that includes commercial scale up of a microneedle vaccine for a clinical trial. We are also in late stages of preparing a proposal with a Korean company for a microneedle device. We are also in on-going discussion with a California collaborator to start a new venture around dissolving microneedles for delivery of a biotherapeutic. We may still even start a company of our own! Our ability to respond to these opportunities has been significantly enhanced by the understanding developed through the VentureLab grants, because they all have commercial manufacturing and regulatory components that most academics do not understand. We now stand out not only as leaders in microneedles research, but also as knowledgeable collaborators on microneedles commercialization.
I thought you might be interested in these developments, and to know that VentureLab’s $50,000 investment directly enabled a $10,000,000 grant award, and we hope will enable even more. Thank you for making this possible.
Mark
Mark R. Prausnitz, PhD
Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
Cherry L. Emerson Faculty Fellow
Director of the Center for Drug Design, Development and Delivery
School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Keeping an Eye on the Georgia Coast
Walter Jones of the Morris News Service recently took a look at the influence of the Georgia Research Alliance across the state. His article below shows how some targeted investments can make a big difference.
Georgia Research Alliance helps keep science funded in the state
By funding research in the state, it helps those efforts find more funds.
Posted: September 19, 2010 – 11:16pm
ATLANTA – If oil was spewing from an undersea well off the coast of Georgia, the resulting slick would have been tracked by a sophisticated radar system funded by the Georgia Research Alliance.
The money for the high-frequency radar stations on Jekyll Island’s Villas by the Sea condo complex at the north end of the island and on St. Catherines Island is just part of the investment by the Research Alliance in the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, which is based near Savannah. And it’s a fraction of the $2.6 billion the alliance has helped attract to the state in research funding over the last 20 years.
“The GRA has contributed substantially to the development of Skidaway Institute’s high frequency radar capabilities in coastal ocean observations,” said Dana Savidge, the principal scientist on the radar project.
True to the mission of the alliance, the funding is aimed at both practical applications and pure research.
“The ocean continues to be very poorly observed,” Savidge said. “For example, we do not know how material from the land crosses the shelf. It may be organic. It may be man made. It may be pollutants. Where does it go and how does it get there? These measurements will help us find out.”
The Research Alliance also funded molecular biology at Skidaway by purchasing a DNA sequencer and other equipment for a classroom and lab. The lab is being used by scientists studying arctic climate change.
Those funds permitted the establishment of a master of science program at Savannah State University. They also prepared the institute to compete nationally for grants that brought in $6 million from out of state, according to Mac Frischer, principal scientist in the lab.
“Skidaway Institute has also built a reputation in marine molecular studies that has attracted many national and international visiting scientists to visit Georgia and the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography,” he said.
Enhancing the reputation of the state’s academic-research institutions like Skidaway, Georgia Tech and Emory University is a major reason the Research Alliance was created.
Boost for the state
Twenty years ago, 17 of the state’s most prominent businessmen agreed to raise money for academic research. Their goal was to boost the state economy by building up intellectual capital and fostering the transfer of breakthroughs from the campus lab to the market place.
The businessmen shared their idea with the candidates for governor that year, and the winner, Zell Miller, made it the centerpiece of his economic-recovery strategy in office.
What resulted became the Georgia Research Alliance. In partnership with the state, it has recruited to Georgia campuses 60 of the country’s most eminent scholars, who have won $2.6 billion in federal and private grants. Their discoveries have benefited more than 100 companies and led to the creation of at least 150 start-up companies and 5,500 high-tech jobs, according to the alliance’s own tally.
By funding early research and young startups, the alliance helps those efforts attract other funding, according to alliance President Michael Cassidy.
“We’re trying to work with each of the universities,” he said. “No. 1, we’re trying to leverage with each other … looking at some glowing embers and throwing some gas on them.”
Looking forward, the alliance is developing videoconferencing for researchers across the state to talk with one another, an online database of their discoveries and a research campus on the site of an abandoned military base near Atlanta’s airport.
walter.jones@morris.com, (404) 589-8424
GRA Perspectives 