INBT and JHTV Coordinate to Match Faculty with Med-tech Company to Develop an Innovative Nanomedicine Platform

our world class research facilities and meet our field leading faculty face-to-face. Since the COVID-19 pandemic started, virtual meetings have taken their place. Typically, our industry partners are looking to work with us to address a specific challenge for them by leveraging the strengths of our faculty and teams, or to develop and refine new potential products or services. With over 60 faculty at INBT, 250 at WSE, and more than 4,700 in the broader JHU community, including over 2,800 at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, coordinating our outreach efforts will maximize the collective power to success.

Before the onset of COVID-19, Seth Zonies, Director of Business Development for WSE, met with research leadership at Integra LifeSciences Corporation, a leading medical technology company, at a partnering conference in Philadelphia. The company was interested in exploring research partnerships with JHU, but was unsure how to identify collaborators that would best complement their current and potential products and services. The first action Zonies did was relay the interest of this company to his colleagues within the JHTV corporate partnerships team. The group, with support from myself, narrowed the inquiry to a small cluster of faculty within the WSE, and specifically under the INBT. From there, Zonies coordinated with me to put together a showcase of potentially relevant faculty for review. The INBT and JHTV hosted several virtual meetings between faculty and company scientists and a match was made with Honggang Cui, core faculty member at the INBT and associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Cui investigates how various nanoparticle formulations can be applied to real-world clinical use cases. After crafting a statement of work and associated budget, JHTV and the INBT helped to facilitate a formal sponsored research partnership, integrating the technology licensing team at JHTV and the Johns Hopkins University Research Administration. The project is planned to run for one year and involves a close collaboration between Cui, his students, and a scientific lead at the company. Depending on preliminary findings this project may lead to expanded research with Cui and result in joint development of intellectual property. The company is also interested in establishing research partnership with more JHU faculty.

The INBT seeks to work with established and newly formed companies to move emerging technologies from laboratory to the marketplace, and provide a vehicle for open exchange between Hopkins researchers with their counterparts in industry. Contact us to find a collaboration opportunity that works for your company.