The Oregon Clinical & Translational Research Institute and Technology Transfer and Business Development have awarded three grants to investigators through the Biomedical Innovation Program. The awards provide funds, project management, and mentorship to facilitate the development of innovative technologies at OHSU and accelerate their translation to the marketplace.
This track of funding supports translational projects that develop new biomedical devices, diagnostics, and software.
Luiz Bertassoni, D.D.S., Ph.D., assistant professor of restorative dentistry, was awarded a grant to support product development and commercialization of a material system for regenerative dental applications.
Basic science developments of the material, EndoGel, are supported by National Institutes of Health RO1 funding. The Biomedical Innovation Program award will help the team move toward launching the commercial product, which promises to be a feasible solution for an unmet need in dental and craniofacial therapies.
Kimberly Hutchison, M.D., associate professor of neurology, was funded for the project “Novel mouth sealer to decrease oral leaking and improve compliance with nasal CPAP for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea.”
The project brings the technical expertise of bioengineers to the project of a sleep medicine physician in order to develop a prototype that is ready to be tested in clinical trials. The concept is a device that will vastly improve the current 55 to 60 percent sub-optimal compliance with the CPAP.
David Sheridan, M.D., assistant professor of emergency medicine, was awarded funding to commercially develop a simple, non-invasive dehydration monitoring device, HydraSense. The team will focus on two markets. In developed countries, the device can reduce costs of unnecessary medical visits.
In developing countries, there is a significant impact on true morbidity and mortality, and the device can help providers with limited medical training in resource-limited settings determine whether to treat with IV fluids or transfer to higher levels of care.
“The Biomedical Innovation Program meets a critical need at OHSU by funding promising early stage and potentially marketable technologies,” said OCTRI Director David Ellison, M.D. “This funding, along with project management and mentorship, helps move the needle substantially, to put these technologies in the best possible position for commercialization where they can ultimately improve patient outcomes. We are very excited to fund these new technologies for 2018, and look forward to working closely with the investigators.”
Detailed information on all three awards, including project abstracts, is provided on the OCTRI website. Visit the OCTRI website for information on OCTRI’s resource services.
The Biomedical Innovation Program awards are also supported by the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research, with additional funding and support from industry partners Welch-Allyn and GE Healthcare.
OCTRI is supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Science at the National Institutes of Health (UL1TR002369).
