• Smartphone Device That Can Diagnose Diabetic Eye Disease Wins Biomedical Innovation Cup
• Cheers to the Latest Mi-Kickstart Awardees
• Therapeutic Innovation: From Idea to IND
• On the Road with FFMI
• Latest News from Project Teams Who Received FFMI Funding, Training, and Support
• Monroe-Brown Seed Fund Celebrates a Successful First Year
• $58 Million Awarded to U-M
• Mark Cohen, M.D., Receives Recognition as a Finalist at the Deshpande Symposium Awards
• Leo Li Joins FFMI for Impact Semester
• Innovation Mixer for Innovation & Entrepreneurship Path of Excellence Students
• Massey Grand Challenge Comes to a Close with Wolverine Den
• Michigan's University Research Corridor Conducts $1.2 Billion in Life, Medical, Health Science Research

	2017 Winner, Tyson Kim, M.D., Ph.D., receives the Biomedical Innovation Cup from host, Paul Riser, M.B.A.

A smartphone device that screens for diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of preventable blindness among Americans, was chosen by a panel of investors as the winning project at Fast Forward Medical Innovation's 2017 Biomedical Innovation Cup on May 17. The annual pitch was held in conjunction with the premier venture event, the Michigan Growth Capital Symposium. 

The RetinaScope, a compact, handheld device that produces wide-angle retinal images similar to those obtained with tabletop retinal cameras, took the top prize at the standing-room only event, beating out other top-notch innovation projects from a group of life science clinicians and researchers of the University of Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization (MTRAC) for Life Sciences Program.  

CLICK HERE to read the full article. 

FFMI recently announced the latest awardees for its Mi-Kickstart early-stage funding program.

Mi-Kickstart Awards, made possible by the Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization for Life Sciences Innovation Hub, the William Davidson Foundation, and the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research, enable biomedical researchers across the state to develop proof of concept for innovative technologies. This award is aimed to enhance the commercial potential of a technology to the point of translation and possible inclusion in Mi-TRAC or other research funding programs. 

The new Mi-Kickstart teams are:

Ruthann Nichols, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences

University of Michigan

"Novel Agent to Improve Cardiac Performance"

Gus Rosania, Ph.D., Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy

University of Michigan

"Drug Repurposing for Gouty Arthritis"

Are you a researcher working in the drug development field and interested in innovation and commercialization? Are you looking for new ideas and want to learn more about therapeutic development? Or do you have an idea and are interested in collaboration opportunities and resources?

Join the Fast Forward Medical Innovation team and guest host Mike Holinstat, Ph.D., Department of Pharmacology, along with
U-M research support service representatives, as they give an overview of the drug development process, as well as the resources points of contact, and services available to therapeutic researchers at U-M. FFMI is partnering with the Michigan Center for Therapeutic Innovation and the Center for the Discovery of New Medicines to present this event. 

Tuesday, August 1 3:00pm-5:00pm BSRB Seminar Rooms ABC Refreshments will be served RSVP link coming soon!

FFMI Managing Director Connie Chang, M.B.A., represented the Medical School as part of a U-M group who traveled to Duke University to attend the Precision Medicine World Conference.  

Brad Martin, Ph.D., MTRAC for Life Sciences Commercialization Program Director, and Michelle Larkin, MSE, MTRAC Tech Mining Specialist, participated as panelists in the "Wolverine Den" for the Massey TBI Grand Challenge Pitch Day on Monday, May 22. Ten teams competed for funding to advance the development of their solutions for TBI patients. 

Hirak Parikh, Ph.D., Program Manager of the  Monroe-Brown Seed Fund, facilitated the Healthcare/IT session at the 2017 Michigan Growth Capital Symposium.

Margarita Sifuentes, Ph.D., Innovation & Entrepreneurship Path of Excellence Coordinator/FFMI Education Coordinator, traveled to Lowell, MA, to attend the Deshpande Symposium where Mark Cohen, M.D., Associate Professor of Surgery and Pharmacology, director of Endocrine Surgery Research, Director of the Medical School Path of Excellence in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, was recognized for his work with the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Path of Excellence.

Path of Excellence student project selected for competition s

Innovation & Entrepreneurship Path of Excellence student Michael Moore and his project team have been selected to participate in the Accelerating Startup Partnership and Investment Readiness (ASPIRE) program in Detroit this summer. The team was also selected as a semi-finalist for the 43North business competition based out of Buffalo, NY.

The Monroe-Brown Seed Fund, a collaboration between FFMI and the College of Engineering's Center for Entrepreneurship, is celebrating its one-year anniversary as a funding vehicle designed to advance the process of transitioning commercially viable biomedical and healthcare products to market. 

With a $3 million gift from the Monroe Brown Foundation, the Monroe-Brown Seed Fund awards seed money to biomedical startup companies with U-M-licensed technology in the domain of therapeutics, devices, diagnostics, or health IT. During this first year, six companies were funded.  These companies are:

• Genomenon
• Brio Device
• Mountain Pass
• ONL Therapeutics
• EVOQ Therapeutics
• Ripple Science

	Participants in the FFMI and MICHR collaborative Train-the-Trainer Course

Congratulations to the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research (MICHR), one of FFMI's close collaborators, which recently received a $58 million grant from the NIH's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, through its Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program. The grant provides for an up-to-five-year new dose of funding. 

MICHR serves health researchers from 170 units in 20 schools, colleges, and institutes across all three U-M campuses in Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and Flint, and provides services to educate, fund, connect, and support them. 

FFMI and MICHR share a long-standing partnership and have worked together on training and educational programs that help life science researchers successfully advance their projects. This funding will allow them to strengthen their partnership and enhance the U-M research infrastructure. In addition to supporting U-M staff and faculty, FFMI and MICHR teamed up earlier this year to offer the groundbreaking FFMI  fastPACE Train-the-Trainer Course for Biomedical Research Commercialization and Innovation to institutions across the country. Representatives from nine CTSA organizations traveled to Ann Arbor to learn how to introduce the FFMI fastPACE program to their campuses. 

To learn more about the MICHR's research grant, read the full announcement or visit MICHR.

	Mark Cohen, M.D. and Margarita Sifuentes, Ph.D.

Congratulations to MTRAC funding award winner Mark Cohen, M.D., Associate Professor of Surgery and Pharmacology, Director of Endocrine Surgery Research, Director of the Medical School Path of Excellence in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, for being selected as one of the top three finalists for the  Award for Outstanding Contributions to Advancing Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education at the Deshpande Symposium Awards last week in Lowell, MA.  U-M Medical School was one of three finalists for the  Excellence in Curriculum Innovation in Entrepreneurship Award . 

Dr. Cohen presented a poster that focused on the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Path of Excellence. Supported in part by FFMI, the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Path of Excellence gives medical students a unique insight into the rapidly expanding culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in biomedical research and medicine. Dr. Cohen is working closely with FFMI and Margarita Sifuentes, Ph.D., Innovation & Entrepreneurship Path of Excellence Coordinator/FFMI Education Coordinator, to develop and refine the program. 

We're excited to welcome Leo Li, a  M4 Med Student and  Innovation & Entrepreneurship Path of Excellence (PoE) participant , who is joining FFMI  for his Impact Semester. The Impact Semester provides students with a chance to get in-depth experience in an area of interest. He  will be applying to the field of anesthesiology.

Leo is working closely with Hirak Parikh on due diligence and analysis for the Monroe-Brown Seed Fund. He is also working with Margarita Sifuentes on programming for the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Path of Excellence (PoE), including setting up internships for PoE students with outside institutions in Ann Arbor and helping develop a clinical needs database to connect faculty, students, and organizations.

On Saturday, May 20, Mark Cohen, M.D., Associate Professor of Surgery and Pharmacology, Director of Endocrine Surgery Research, Director of the Medical School Innovation & Entrepreneurship Path of Excellence, hosted the inaugural Innovation Mixer to celebrate all medical students in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Path of Excellence (PoE), as well as their capstone mentors and innovation contacts throughout the U-M entrepreneurship ecosystem. More than 40 people attended the event, including FFMI Faculty Champion Mike Holinstat, Ph.D., Pharmacology, and David Olson, B.S., Ph.D., Mentor-in-Residence, U-M Tech Transfer. 

The event gave students the opportunity to showcase their projects and practice innovative thinking and problem solving through activities such as Innovation Networking, Egg-cellent Design Thinking, and a Surgical Health Care Challenge and Pitch.  

After a successful Massey TBI Grand Challenge kick-off event in February, the competition came to a close last month with Wolverine Den (MCIRCC's version of Shark Tank). Seven teams were awarded funding thanks to the generous gift from the Joyce and Don Massey Family Foundation.

Traumatic brain injury is a major cause of death and disability in the United States, contributing to about 30 percent of all injury deaths. At the same time, current diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment strategies for TBI are primitive, largely supportive in nature, and are ineffective at reducing the extent of the injury.

CLICK HERE to read the full article.

Michigan's University Research Corridor (URC) conducted $1.2 billion in research and development in the health sciences sector and has proven to be a key source of talent, deliverer of care, and economic driver in Michigan, according to a new report released on June 1, 2017.

The report discusses the importance of the life, medical, and health sciences to Michigan, and the direct impact URC research and discoveries have on people's lives.

For more information, read the full announcement.