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OSU delegates share future bioscience innovations with leaders

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The Story

Three Oklahoma State University researchers this week have been connecting face-to-face with some of the world’s top bioscience companies during the 2019 BIO International Convention in Philadelphia.

As part of the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber’s branded Oklahoma Bioscience Association (OKBio) delegation, the three OSU-based delegates have been making the most of their meetings with top pharmaceutical and bioscience company representatives.

The team consists of Jacob Mahaffey, assistant director of OSU Research Foundation’s Cowboy Technologies LLC; Joshua D. Ramsey, associate professor and Robert N. Maddox Faculty fellow; and Heather Gappa-Fahlenkamp, professor and interim head, Anadarko Petroleum chair, Graduate Program director at the Laboratory of Tissue Science and Engineering.

OSU’s goal is to make people’s daily lives better, Mahaffey said. Cowboy Technologies has more than 40 technology research projects in its portfolio that researchers are working to get to market for medical applications.

Ramsey said Cowboy Technologies and the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST) both are $150,000 grant investors in supporting an innovation he’s helping to develop with one of his former OSU lab students, Momen Amer, who recently finished his Ph.D. The application is a newly designed multichamber, single-use bio (cellular) reactor containing disposable bags that eliminates the need for sterilizing and cleaning in place.

“We’re working to commercialize our product and basically translating it from the lab into the commercial sphere where the product can benefit the people of Oklahoma and beyond,” he said.

He said OCAST, Cowboy Technologies and OSU’s New Product Development Center are working to start a new company based in Oklahoma.

“We’ve a great time at the conference,” Ramsey said. “It’s allowed us to sit down across the table from high-level decision makers from companies that might be interested in supporting our research or supporting our technology.”

 

Source: OSU delegates share future bioscience innovations with leaders