LSU awards $500K to faculty entrepreneurs under new grant program

LSU has awarded 15 grants totaling $500,000 to faculty members through its new LIFT2 (Leveraging Innovation for Technology Transfer) grant program, which provides funding to validate the market potential of the faculty members’ inventions. Grants are for up to $50,000. “Some examples of the work being supported through the initial LIFT2 grants include a real-time, automated video analytics system; a novel chewing gum to prevent certain cancers; a system to manage irrigation at container plant nurseries; a biodegradable urethral scaffold; a method to reclaim treated wood and recycle it as a raw material for ‘green’ spray foam insulation; and software enhancements to smartphone apps for weight management,” LSU says in a news release. LSU President F. King Alexander says in a prepared statement that “this program will help to see many of these projects advance from basic research to market.” Results of the research from the first grants are expected within a year. The grant awardees were selected from among 47 applications. Of the 15 awards, seven are going to faculty members at LSU’s flagship campus, while three are going to researchers at the LSU AgCenter, three at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, one at the LSU Health Sciences Center Shreveport and one at Pennington Biomedical Research Center. In January, the LSU Board of Supervisors OK’d creating the new grant program and dedicated $2 million in restricted funds—all generated by previously licensed LSU inventions—toward the initiative. Grants will be awarded twice a year. The next round of applications for LIFT2 awards will open in November. —Steve Sanoski