Tag: technology licensing

New SPARK Award Program Aims to Stimulate Entrepreneurship

From the Office of Technology Licensing:

The Brandeis Virtual Incubator is excited to launch a brand new funding program,  SPARK Awards, to stimulate entrepreneurship on campus and help bring your ideas and entrepreneurial ambitions to life. The SPARK Program will provide pilot funding for innovative projects that will have a positive social, educational or financial impact in the area of the environment, education, computer science, healthcare, economic solutions, or social needs.

We would like to invite members of the Brandeis Community (faculty, staff and students) to submit an application

We will be awarding $50,000 to be shared among the most promising proposals.

Come get your questions answered at one of our upcoming Info Sessions: 

  • Thursday, February 26, 1:00 p.m-2:00 p.m. (IBS, Chancellor’s Suite)
  • Friday, February 27, 12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m.  (Volen, Room 101)

Deadlines: Preliminary Proposals are due by Friday, March 6th

Please note the SPROUT Program for bench research, lab space and/or lab equipment will continue into its 5th year!

For more information on each program go to our website or contact the OTL program leaders, Anu Ahuja for SPARK and Melissa Blackman for SPROUT.

SPROUT grant opportunity for 2015 announced

From the Brandeis Office of Technology Licensing:

The Brandeis Virtual Incubator invites members of the Brandeis Community (faculty, staff and students) to submit an application for the SPROUT Program. These Awards are intended to stimulate entrepreneurship on campus and help researchers launch their ideas and inventions from the lab to the marketplace.The SPROUT Program will provide pilot funding for innovative scientific projects within the Division of Science that require bench research, lab space, and/or lab equipment.

We will be awarding $50,000 to be shared among the most promising proposals.
Come get your questions answered at one of our upcoming information sessions.
Info Sessions: 
Thursday, February 26,  11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. (Volen, room 201)
Monday, March 2,  2:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.   (Shapiro Science Center, 1st Floor Library, room 1-03)
 
Deadlines: Preliminary Proposals are due by Friday, March 6th
Please note, the introduction of the new SPARK Program geared towards innovative non-bench projects that have impact. An additional email will be sent detailing this program.
For more information on each program go to our website or contact the OTL program leaders,  Melissa Blackman for SPROUT and  Anu Ahuja  for SPARK.

Have a Jolly Time with Smart Balance

According to a story in the Sioux City Journal , the makers of Jolly Time Pop Corn are releasing new varieties made with Smart Balance, a butter substitute using technology patented at Brandeis. The blend of oils, based on research from KC Hayes’s lab in Biology, is “heart-healthy” by virtue of containing a blend of polyunsaturated, monounsaturated and saturated fats designed to improve the HDL/LDL cholesterol ratio.

Sprout Grant Winners Announced

Winners of the 2013 Sprout Grant competition held by the Brandeis Office of Technology and Licensing have been announced. Sprout grants support research that is “novel, patentable and [has] commercial potential“, and encourage students to think about new and different ways to apply their basic science for practical good. Each team applying for a grant must be led by a Brandeis student or postdoc (noted in asterisks below), who were responsible for presenting their proposals to the review panel.

Teams that received funding.

  • Marcus Long (*), Ann Lawson, Lior Rozhansky ’15, and Liz Hedstrom: $20,000 to develop novel inhibitors of deubiquitinating enzymes;
  • Michael Heymann (*), Achini Opathalage, Dongshin Kim, and Seth Fraden: $5,500 for its development of CrystalChip;
  • Michael Spellberg (*), Calla Olson, Marissa Donovan, and Mike Marr: $10,000 to develop a tool to purify Calmodulin-tagged recombinant proteins;
  • Julian Eskin (*) and Bruce Goode: $2,000 for work on a rapid and efficient kit to purify actin;
  • Eugene Goncharov ’13 (*), Yuval Galor ’15,  and Alex Bardasu ’15: $2,500 towards development of their iPhone app LineSaver, which collects data on local hotspots and gives users an estimated wait-time for restaurants, clubs and tourist attractions.

You can read more at BrandeisNOW

Biogen Idec seeks regulatory approval for rFVIIIFc to treat Hemophilia A

Driving into work this morning, I heard that Biogen Idec is seeking FDA approval for a new breakthrough drug to treat Hemophilia A. The drug, a recombinant factor VIII Fc fusion protein (rFVIIIFc), provides a longer-lasting version of the clotting factor that is missing in these patients, and could help significantly reduce the frequency of injections for these patients (a big deal for children with an inherited bleeding disorder!)

The fusion protein approach is based on technology developed in part at Brandeis, by a collaboration involving Neil Simister‘s laboratory and researchers at Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, then further developed by a spinoff company, Syntonix Pharmaceuticals. Syntonix was acquired by Biogen Idec in 2007.

From bench to clinical trials: the rFIXFc story

BrandeisNOW has a new story about the development of recombinant Factor IX Fc,  a candidate drug for hemophila, currently in Phase III cliniical trials. The story behind the Fc fusion technology started in academic labs including Neil Simister‘s at Brandeis, led to a biotech startup (Syntonix), which was then acquired by Biogen Idec, who are now conducing clinical trials.

For more, see http://www.brandeis.edu/now/2011/june/hemophilia.html