Congratulations to the participants of the UAB I-Corps@NCATS Regional Short Course, which concluded in August. Fourteen research teams, listed below, finished the five-week course, graduating with invaluable insights into what prospective “customers” like about their proposed health service models, devices, and technologies. At least one of the teams, Xenmar, is considering moving forward to the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps™ program for a $50,000 funding award.

CCTS Executive Council Member and Collat School of Business Associate Dean for Research, Innovation, and Faculty Success Dr. Molly Wasko led the short course. As the I-Corps Program Director for UAB, she is a strong advocate of the program’s goal for biomedical investigators and engineers: to connect these scientists to the future beneficiaries of their projects as a critical step to improving the return on taxpayer investments in federally funded research.

Wasko sees it as a win-win for researchers who are interested in entrepreneurship — “Moving a scientific discovery from academia to market via a start-up company is a windy, twisty road full of hurdles. The CCTS and its partners in the CTSA consortium developed the I-Corps@NCATS program to help researchers successfully navigate the commercialization pathway.”

I-Corp@NCATS UAB Regional Short Course Teams

Solution Studios: David Lee, Joel Berry, Sam Misko, Kristen Noles, Max Polec, and Nancy Wingo
Cerflux: Lisa Johnson
Stoma Surgical Support: Paige Severino, Ali El-Husari, Allaire Doussan, Hira Munir, Brody Desilva
NMR: Will Placzek, Ron Shin
Metabolism Core: Barbara Gower
UAB Vestibular Occular Research Clinic: Graham Cochrane, Jennifer Braswell Christy, Anwar Almutairi, Katherine Weise
Tricorder Array Technologies: Robert Tindal, Thomas Gambill
TGEMs: Bob Kesterson, Laura Lambert
XenMar: Stephen Aller, Cole Martin
HealthDomo: Ethan Summers
TWiNN: James George
Civitan International Neuroimaging Lab: Mark Bolding, Jane Allendorfer, Kristina Visscher
Structural Biology: Champy Deivanayag
eMass: Andrew Smith

To learn more about the short course, see “Commercialization of breakthrough medical research enhanced by national entrepreneurship program.” To register your team for an upcoming regional short course, visit our I-Corps@NCATS Short Course page. Watch this brief 10-minute video on how the I-Corps@NCATS program is accelerating discovery in the life sciences.