The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation sponsors an annual program that provides gap funding to accelerate commercial development of medical technologies invented at the university. “The Coulter program intends to bring ideas together from different parts of the university,” says Art Rosenthal (Professor of Practice at BU). “We want to increase collaborations between biomedical engineers and clinicians at the medical school to develop university research projects into prototypes that can be positioned commercially. We want to provide the funding, oversight and expertise that help these projects accomplish critical steps in developing their ideas into commercially viable products.”
Jen Marron, Administrative Director of the Coulter program at BU says, “The overall mission of the foundation is ‘Science Serving Humanity,’ and the best way to do that is to take medically relevant research and help them develop a product that gets to market.” To be considered for funding, research projects must have clinical applications and be jointly developed by a BU-affiliated biomedical engineer and/or clinician. Ultimately, the Coulter Foundation seeks to assist with gap funding and commercial expertise that prepares the technology for commercialization, as well as help it obtain industry or follow-on funding.
To date, the Coulter partnership has made $3.58M in awards to 35 projects at BU in its first five years of existence. “Some of our projects have become start-ups; others have remained in-house as we continue to develop them into a commercial interest,” says Marron. The Coulter-BU partnership has now entered into its second 5-year phase where $500K from the foundation is matched by the university, effectively providing $1,000,000 annually in gap funding for medical technologies. “This funding support demonstrates the University’s commitment to advancing translational research,” says Marron.
One of the partnership’s success stories is development of a portable bionic pancreas by Ed Damiano (Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering) and Steven Russell (Endocrinologist, MGH). Damiano has developed a computer algorithm that regulates blood glucose in diabetics by communicating with glucose sensors and insulin-glucagon or insulin-dextrose pumps. The product would help with treating the most serious, acute and long-term complications of type 1 and insulin-dependent type 2 diabetes. “We funded the Damiano-Russell project very early in its inception,” says Marron, “We funded an animal study that turned out to be the basis for all the other experiments that Damiano and Russell are now doing. Like many of our other projects, we’re trying to build as much value as we can before it is ready for commercialization.”
For more information about the Coulter Translational Research Program at BU, please visit: http://www.bu.edu/bme/research/coulter/about/
