Web-based software that can possibly predict election results, a food additive that can help control blood sugar and a synthetic composite that can be used in bone grafts are three of the 15 projects recently awarded proof-of-concept funding through the Leverage Innovation for Technology Transfer fund to help bring those ideas to the market.
Overall, LSU awarded more than $530,000 to LSU system faculty members through the LIFT2 fund, the university announced today. Since the LSU Board of Supervisors created the fund in January 2014, LSU has awarded a total of $1.5 million to 44 projects in three rounds of funding. LSU awards LIFT2 funds twice a year up to $50,000 for each project through a competitive grant process for researchers to validate the market potential of their inventions.
“We’ve improved the LIFT2 program with each round of grants from input gathered from applicants, faculty, administration and tech transfer officers,” reads a prepared statement by Arthur Cooper, CEO of the LSU Research & Technology Foundation, which administers the LIFT2 grant application process. “The LIFT2 program is on its way to becoming one of the best commercialization programs in the country.”
Among the latest round of grant recipients is LSU Department of Geography & Anthropology Assistant Professor David Sathiaraj, who wants to build a predictive analytic model to be combined with existing voter targeting and canvassing software to create a software dashboard that can predict election results.
Meanwhile, the LSU AgCenter and Pennington Biomedical Research Center are collaborating to create nanoparticles from crushed sugarcane bagasse that can help regulate blood sugar. And LSU AgCenter Assistant Professor Daniel Hayes and Department of Chemistry Professor John Pojman are working together to create Bone Foam, a synthetic compound that can be used in bone grafts.
In addition to those projects, other notable inventions in medicine, biology, chemistry and engineering also received funding.
Judd Shellito and Alistair Ramsay, from LSU Health New Orleans, are working on novel vaccines and therapeutics for pneumocystis pneumonia. Naohiro Kato, from the LSU Department of Biological Sciences, is working on a method to produce bioplastics from microalgal culture. Daniel Hsia, from LSU Health New Orleans, is conducting a pilot study on the effect of caffeine and albuterol versus a placebo on the body composition in adolescents.
The LIFT2 grant funding comes from licensing income generated by inventions created at LSU. The money is used by researchers to help bring their inventions and innovations to market. Money generated from products that make it to market because of this round of LIFT2 funding will be used to fund more university projects in the future.
LSU has the full list of the latest projects receiving funding through LIFT2.
