Creating groundbreaking inventions to improve lives requires more than an idea: It needs research and development, which involves funding. Two Purdue University funds are helping researchers take those R&D steps.
Eight Purdue University researchers have received more than $470,000 from the Trask Innovation Fund and Proof of Concept Fund to make their work more attractive for commercial use. Both funds are managed by the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization.
“Researchers face a gap between creating their technology and advancing it to the point that it is ready to be licensed and brought to market. Researchers need funding to bridge that ‘valley of death,’” said Brooke Beier, senior vice president of commercialization for Purdue Research Foundation. “PRF recognizes the importance of funding to translate research into products that are viable for startups and industry. These programs are two examples of helping Purdue technologies advance toward commercialization.”
The Proof of Concept Fund was established in 2021; this is its first round of funding. It invests up to $100,000 in select Purdue technologies for commercialization-directed research or related projects. Industry leaders are involved in the selection, design and oversight of the funded projects.
“This engagement of industry professionals reflects the Proof of Concept Fund’s objective to fund work that will substantially improve the probability of a startup company being investible or a license with an existing company being executed,” said Abhijit Karve, director of business development for the Office of Technology Commercialization.
Proof of Concept Fund recipients, their college, project title and total award amount are:
- Rahim Rahimi, College of Engineering, “Microneedle Array Patch for Wound Oxygenation and Biofilm Eradication,” $89,604.
- Yoon Yeo, College of Pharmacy, “Flexible, Non-cationic, Cold Chain-Free Nanocarrier for Systemic Delivery of RNA Therapeutics,” $98,629.
- Jeffrey P. Youngblood, College of Engineering, “Sustainable Lidded Rigid Trays for Food Packaging,” $99,244.
The Trask Innovation Fund awards up to $50,000 to support short-term projects that enhance the commercial value of Purdue’s intellectual property. Trask Innovation Fund recipients, their project and award amount are:
- James Caruthers and Enrico N. Martinez, College of Engineering, “Production of Lignin and Clean Cellulose from Nonfood Biomass,” $50,000.
- Somali Chaterji, Colleges of Engineering and Agriculture, “Serverless Cloud Engineering for Complex Machine Learning Workloads: Fast and Furious for Your Hardest Data Analytics Tasks,” $33,991.
- Vilas Pol, College of Engineering, “Safer High-Voltage Solid-State Batteries,” $50,000.
- P. Ramachandran, College of Science, “Selective Therapeutic for Clostridiodes Difficile Infection,” $50,000.
