WELCOME TO NEW Q RESIDENTS

Flashpoint Therapeutics (Prof. Chad Mirkin, Weinberg) is developing the next generation of immunotherapeutics, harnessing the power of nanotechnology to create more potent vaccines. Flashpoint's novel vaccine structure optimizes the delivery and cellular processing of vaccine components, leading to enhanced anti-cancer immunity.

Temprian Oncology (Prof. SonBinh Nguyen, Weinberg and Prof. I. Caroline LePoole, Feinberg) is focused on the development of novel drugs for the treatment of cancer. They have developed Monobenzone Supercarriers that are designed to treat metastasized melanoma.

ARMA Biosciences (Prof. Shana Kelley, Weinberg) has developed a rapid, versatile sensor to enable continuous monitoring of physiological markers to enable detection of infectious disease, monitoring chronic disease biomarkers or overall health and wellness.

We're excited to see The Q community to continue to grow! To become a Q Startup Resident, an active IP option/license must be in place with Northwestern. To express interest, please complete this SPACE FORM.

OPPORTUNITIES TO JOIN THE INVO TEAM

The Innovations and New Ventures Office has several open positions for dedicated and collaborative individuals passionate about tech transfer and university technology commercialization. Join a highly collaborative team with a great mission and in an intellectually stimulating environment!

Open positions include InQbation Lab Administrator (#49484), Invention Manager (#48419), Research Associate (#49387), and Financial Administrator (#49050). Visit Northwestern's HR website for more details.

Cour Pharma (Prof. Stephen Miller, Feinberg) completed their $105M Series A financing round co-led by Lumiar Ventures and Alpha Wave Ventures. The funds will support the further development of their immune tolerance platform addressing the treatment of Myasthenia Gravis and Type 1 Diabetes. Read more

Vanqua Bio (Prof. Dimitri Krainc, Feinberg) announced the development of VQ-101, a brain-penetrant small molecule allosteric activator of glucocerebrosidase (GCase) that will start clinical development in early 2024 for Parkinson’s disease. Read more

MFNS-Tech (Prof. Vinayak Dravid, McCormick) completed their $1.34M Seed round which will support 6+ pilots, scale-up production, and business expansion of their nanostructure coating for environmental remediation.

Epicore Biosystems (Prof. John Rogers, McCormick) secured investment from Pegasus Tech Ventures and Denka to scale its personalized hydration wearable across Asia. Read more

Clever Carnivore (Prof. Paul Burridge, Feinberg) focuses on producing low-cost, top-quality, and cruelty-free cultivated meat has successfully closed a $7 million Seed round funding led by Lever VC. Read more

NanoGraf (Prof. Harold Kung, McCormick) opened its manufacturing facility in the West Loop, marking the first large-volume silicon oxide manufacturing facility. With an expected material production capacity of 35 tons per year, the facility will enable NanoGraf to create green and high-tech jobs while scaling production to meet the demands of its innovative battery technology, particularly the silicon anode material known for increasing energy density by over 20%. Read more

Actinia (Prof. Mercouri Kanatzidis, Weinberg), is raising $4M in Seed funding to reach production-level manufacturing capacity for their radiation detector materials.

Stemloop (Prof. Julius Lucks, McCormick) is raising $2M in Seed funding to support the commercialization of their first product, µSense for Lead, which utilizes cell-free biosensors.

NU STARTUPS: To share your fundraising/milestone news, email inqbationlab@northwestern.edu.

INVESTORS: Contact InQbation Lab for more information regarding these investment opportunities.

The Q SUMMER SCHOLARS PROGRAM provides summer entrepreneurial fellowship opportunities to Northwestern undergraduates at Northwestern startups.

The program will provide a $4K stipend to help cover living expenses for 8 weeks of full-time work and will conclude with a Demo Day where students will present their summer projects to their peers. Northwestern students may find summer project description on the Summer Scholars website.

Application Deadline is Friday, February 16.

The KELLOGG-Q LAB ENTREPRENEURIAL RESIDENCY is an exciting opportunity for Kellogg MBAs interested in research-based commercialization and entrepreneurship to partner with Northwestern researchers with translational research projects. This collaboration between Kellogg and The Q embeds MBA students in Northwestern's premier research centers. Potential deliverables include market studies, competitive analyses, gap analyses, or assessments of commercialization potential. Project Pitches may be found HERE.

Application Deadline is Friday, February 9.

The Q is accepting applications for the FOUNDHER FELLOWS, an annual fellowship program designed to cultivate first-time women scientist entrepreneurs at Northwestern. Through one-on-one mentoring, the three-month program focuses on the commercial strategy of the Fellows’ scientific discoveries, professional development, and pitch presentation coaching. This fellowship is open to Northwestern scientific founders (including current or former graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, or research scientists/non-tenure faculty) that are committed to leading (as CEO, CTO, etc.) their research-based startups. Learn More and Apply HERE. Application Deadline is February 1.

Q FOUNDER SEMINAR SERIES

This winter, we wrapped up a 5-part series on "Advancing Therapeutics." The seminar series focused on critical topics related to the early stages of therapeutic development. In December and January, we held seminars by Marta New (CEO and Founder, Raydus Research), Eric Schiffhauer (Director of Academic Outreach, Deerfield Management) and Mitchell Glass (Principal, Broom Street Associates). Topics included the therapeutic development pipeline, building a Target Product Profile, screening and identifying compounds, and navigating the therapeutic regulatory process and IND applications.

Q CEO ROUNDTABLES

Adam Goodman leads insightful discussion on leadership for NU startup CEOS.

Former SIA CEO Alexei Mlodinow visits The Q as our guest CEO.

CEO Roundtables were established this past fall to provide a confidential community Northwestern startup CEOs. In December, the CEO Roundtable featured Adam Goodman, the Director of Northwestern University's Center for Leadership who met with executive leaders, including (from left to right) Khalid Alam (Stemloop), Gerry Sapienza (Opera), Kurt Zoller (PreDx), Paul Bertin (Grove BioPharma), Nick Sather (Amphix Bio), and Yosi Kratish. These monthly roundtables provide an open forum for newer CEOs of Northwestern startups to connect and gain insights from more seasoned CEOs.

Q ENTREPRENEURIAL FELLOWS ROUNDTABLE

Because the format of the CEO Roundtable has been well-received by both startup CEOs and our CEO guests, The Q initiated a similar offering to its Q Entrepreneurial Fellows who are earlier in their startup journeys. The 2023-2024 Q EFs are research scientists who have committed one year to work on both business and technical milestones.

We invited James Hedrick, CTO of Azul3D, to be our first guest to share his experience and insight in spinning a company out of Northwestern research. Pictured left (left to right) are Rebecca Keate, Jesse Gordon-Blake, James Hedrick, Prof. Adam Goodman, Yosi Kratish, and Jack McGee)

BUSINESS OF SCIENCE SERIES

In collaboration with The Graduate School and the Chicago Biomedical Consortium, the Querrey InQbation Lab is supporting an effort to introduce business management concepts and methods for research scientists in the postdoctoral community in the Chicagoland area. We are hosting over 40 PhD and MD participants primarily from Northwestern but include University of Chicago. We'd like to express our gratitude to Profs. James Conley, Adam Goodman and Mark Finn for their lectures and look forward to the second half of the series.

ENTREPRENEURIAL FELLOWS OPPORTUNITY

The Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC) is recruiting for its Entrepreneurial Fellows Award Program Fall 2024 cohort. This is a one-year paid fellowship open to PhDs, MDs, and postdocs interested in moving biomedical breakthroughs from academia into a biotech startup or industry. As an EF, you will collaborate with university investigators to develop proposals for translational projects with potential funding from CBC Award programs and other organizations, gaining exposure to various aspects of drug discovery, including investment thesis development, project planning, budgeting, regulatory compliance, and fostering a drug discovery culture.

The application portal is scheduled to open at 9 AM on March 28, 2024. Applicants can meet our current fellows for Fizzle Fridays on March 1st @4:00pm RSVP here and April 19th @4:00pm RSVP here.

More application and program details HERE

POLSKY I-CORPS APPLICATION OPEN FOR SPRING



The Polsky Center I-Corps Program is a National Science Foundation-funded entrepreneurial program for university scientists, researchers, and students teams working on ideas in the science, technology, mathematics, and engineering (STEM) fields. No previous business or entrepreneurship experience is required.

More Information and Apply HERE. Application deadline is Monday, February 5.

Contact: Ellen Zatkowski at ellen.zatkowski@chicagobooth.edu.

If you have any questions, please visit the Querrey InQbation Lab or email inQbationlab@northwestern.edu. Previous Q newsletters may be found HERE.