Institute announces research projects

By Jesse Brown

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The University of Kansas Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation recently announced the 15 projects that will be funded by $16.1 million in gifts from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Kansas University Endowment Association.

The projects will be conducted by eight graduate students, called fellows, who will work with 15 professors. The projects include research in medical technology and engineering.

Joshua Sestak, Philadelphia, Pa, graduate student and fellow for the institute, has spent the last year working with polymer-based therapeutics to treat autoimmune diseases. He said with this new funding he hoped to create something that would interest other corporations so that some day they would be able to buy the rights and develop his ideas further.

“I’m hoping I could finish my part in about two more years,” Sestak said. “But it’s definitely an ongoing thing. As long as it keeps working, the finish point would be a final product you could give to humans.”

Katie Ferro, Kansas City, Mo., graduate student, will work with each professor and graduate student on their intended products with the hope of commercializing and selling the products.

“I’ll spend maybe two to three weeks with each fellow with whatever device, product or chemical compound and help them look at a market in a correct way,” Ferro said. “I’m helping them write a business plan or helping them understand what market it can go in.”

Wally Meyer, director of entrepreneurship programs and Ferro’s academic sponsor, said the role Ferro would play would be different from the other fellows because she would be assisting each of them.

“Katie will be helping her colleagues as well as the faculty,” Meyer said. “The real grass-cutting issue is feasibility analysis for each of the inventions.”

Meyer said her family background in the medical and pharmaceutical fields made her a good fit for the role because she had already participated in the business in some capacity.

The new advisory board the institute appointed in July selected the fellows who would assist the professors.

The funding the institute received is intended for a five-year deal. Ferro said the grant was a great way to get the institute up and running.

“To see them allocate this grant is a one-time deal,” she said. “It’s the largest grant they have ever given and will be the largest one. Period.”

The institute said in a press release that after five years it hopes to be self-sufficient from selling the products.

— —Edited by Samantha Foster

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