Five US-based biomedical projects at Wayne State University have received Mtrac funding to pursue goals including better immunotherapy and new antibiotics.

Five US-based biomedical projects at Wayne State University (WSU) have each received commitments of up to $100,000 from the university through its leg of the Michigan Translational Research and Commercialisation (Mtrac) program.
Mtrac helps commercialise research from all Michigan higher education institutions, hospital systems and nonprofit research systems. The initiative includes industry-themed hubs each managed by a different Michigan university, with WSU in charge of the biomedicine program.
WSU’s Mtrac initiative has so far funded 13 technologies which have spawned three spinouts and almost $5m in follow-on funding.  The program is supported by Michigan Economic Development Company.
The latest WSU projects to secure capital are:

  • “Imaging Agent for Early Monitoring of Immune Activation”, which aims to find a non-invasive tracer capable of monitoring cancer patients’ response to immunotherapy drugs. The project is co-led by Heather Gibson and Nerissa Viola, both assistant professors at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute.
  • “Lipid Nanoparticles of Potent Antibiotics for Reversal of Drug Resistance of Superbug Infections,” which will build an approach to tackle drug-resistant infections such as MSRA.  Arun Iyer, assistant professor in the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, will direct the project.
  • “Biological Engineered Blood Vessels Strengthened with Skin Matrix,” a project aimed at developing biological grafts from a patient’s cells to replace those damaged by disease. Led by Mai Lam, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering.
  • “Smart Insulin Technology,” which will conduct feasibility studies of a smart insulin device for diabetes, under the direction of Zhiqiang Cao, an associate professor of chemical engineering.
  • “Raman Probe for Neurosurgery,” a project hoping to commercialise surgical Raman spectroscopy probes for real-time identification of residual tumour cells during brain surgery. The project is co-led by Gregory Auner and Michelle Brusatori, two professors from the School of Medicine and College of Engineering.