Thank you for attending the joint Startup Pitch Day hosted by Columbia Technology Ventures and Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures, showcasing the most exciting startups emerging from the research labs of Columbia and Johns Hopkins. Below are videos from the event. Contact Columbia (techventures@columbia.edu) or Johns Hopkins (ventures.jhu.edu/contact-us/) to learn more.
Columbia Technology Ventures (CTV) is the technology transfer office for Columbia University and a central location for many of the technology development initiatives, entrepreneurial activities, external industry collaborations, and commercially-oriented multidisciplinary technology innovations across the university. CTV’s core mission is to facilitate the transfer of inventions from academic research labs to the market for the benefit of society. To join our mailing list or for questions about our events, please visit techventures.columbia.edu or send us an email at techventures@columbia.edu.
Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures (JHTV) is the commercialization and entrepreneurship hub of the university, responsible for fostering a rich innovation ecosystem and bringing Johns Hopkins discoveries to market. We help innovators and entrepreneurs safeguard and commercialize intellectual property, develop startups into sustainable ventures and forge strategic collaborations with industry. To connect with JHTV, please visit ventures.jhu.edu/contact-us.
Our technology is a topically bioactive agent which blocks not only retinal edema but also neurodegeneration. Retinal edema and subsequent neurodegeneration is a major cause of blindness and current therapies are not adequate in up to 50% of patients. A head-to-head comparison with the first line therapy for retinal edema showed that our technology provided superior efficacy in preventing retinal detachment and preserving neuronal function. We have identified a novel molecular pathway which leads to retinal vascular dysfunction, edema, inflammation and neuronal synaptic loss and death; applying our molecule topically (eye drops) provides substantial protection in a mouse model of edema, retina vein occlusion. Our molecule reaches the back of the eye in mouse and rabbit; our mouse studies confirm target engagement after RVO. The target was validated using genetic knockout. Ongoing studies of human retina suggest that the target is present in human eyes with retinal vascular dysfunction. Current therapies use intravitreal injections which can be anxiety inducing for patients and prevent them from following up with treatments. Our therapeutic eye drops could increase patient compliance leading to better overall outcomes.
Epitor is an epigenetic editing company focused on developing novel tools to regulate gene expression that is under epigenetic control. Developed by Columbia faculty member Dr. Shawn Liu, Epitor’s technology uses AAVs to deliver single guide RNAs and compact Cas proteins fused with effector functions to methylate or de-methylate target genes or expose specific DNA loops for efficient epigenetic editing. This technology can increase or decrease DNA transcription and protein production. Using these tools, Epitor is developing disease modifying treatments for X-linked diseases and diseases caused by nucleotide repeat expansion. Rett syndrome is an X-linked, neurodevelopmental disease that can potentially be treated by reactivating the wild type MECP2 gene on the inactivated X chromosome. The most common genetic form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) caused by GGGGCC repeats in the C9orf72 locus can potentially be treated by silencing expression epigenetically of the aberrant gene. Epitor is seeking $15-20M in funding to advance these programs to IND-enabling studies.
Spun out of the lab of Columbia’s Dr. Stavroula Kousteni, Epioni is pioneering the use of osteoblast-derived hormones for the treatment of a range of endocrine-related disorders. The first asset, Lipocalin-2, is focused on clinical weight loss and has been demonstrated to suppress food intake and act as a satiety signal. The market for clinical weight loss products is predicted to reach more than $70bn by 2030. In vivo testing has shown the ability to materially reduce caloric consumption in mice and primates combined with a highly encouraging safety profile, targeting a material improvement over currently marketed products. The asset has been developed into an orally delivered formulation. Development of Lipocalin-2 as a therapeutic has been supported by $4MM in grants and Columbia has filed a patent for composition of matter and clinical utility. Epioni seeks a Series A round of $12MM to complete preclinical testing, CMC manufacturing an IND submission and to conduct a Phase I clinical trial.
The goal of this company is to develop cell replacement therapy (CRT) for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and childhood interstitial lung disease (chILD), two lethal lung disease for which lung transplantation is only definitive treatment, using lung progenitors derived from pluripotent stem cells.
The mission of Corvyv is to improve clinical outcomes in patients suffering a heart attack. Blood flow to the heart is interrupted in a heart attack, leading to irreversible cell death and loss of heart muscle. All current therapies focus on alleviating symptoms and salvaging muscle at risk by reestablishing blood flow. Corvyv is a novel therapeutic that directly targets signaling pathways to prevent cell death, leading to more heart muscle survival. We are currently in preclinical testing of our small molecule inhibitor APS-062 which targets the intracellular kinase STK25. Studies in both human heart cells and mice have shown that loss of STK25 leads to improved cell survival and better outcomes after a heart attack without apparent toxicity. APS-062 prevents cell death in human heart cells in vitro and led to improved myocardial function after heart attacks in mice. Currently, we are optimizing dosing of APS-062 in mouse efficacy studies as well as expanding our lead compounds for STK25 kinase targeting for future in vitro and in vivo studies. Our vision is that pharmacological inhibition of STK25 will provide protection against heart attacks clinically by improving cardiomyocyte survival and prove beneficial for patients experiencing heart attacks.
Genetic retinal diseases cause progressive vision loss and blindness in people of all ages. These are the most genetically heterogenous of human diseases, caused by mutations in over 300 genes. This genetic diversity poses a challenge for developing generalizable treatments across genes and subtypes – to date, less than 1% of genes are eligible for an FDA-approved single-gene therapy. To address this challenge, we are developing a mutation-agnostic treatment for genetic eye diseases based on retinal cell therapy. Our vision is that every affected person, regardless of their individual genetic makeup, will be eligible for a highly effective, safe, and durable vision-saving treatment.
Kampto Neurotech, LLC has developed a unique brain-computer interface (BCI) device that sits entirely in the subdural space, the space between the skull and brain. With a scale of 65k electrodes, the device consumes a volume of approximately 3 mm2, making it the most capable and volumetrically efficient BCI device ever developed. Powering of and communication with the implant is accomplished with a small wearable battery-powered "relay station" which is itself an 802.11n device, providing a bidirectional WiFi connection to the brain. The device leverages the latest in semiconductor technology and foundry processing to deliver devices at low manufacturing cost. Comprehensive pre-clinical testing is on-going in two large animal models and we have begun the regulatory efforts to get permission for first-in-human trials for two clinical presentations.
Oculi, The Intelligent Vision Sensor, fabless seed stage startup, spin-out of Johns Hopkins University, makes computer/machine vision faster and more efficient by moving image processing to the pixel, the true edge. Oculi means “eyes” in Latin and our mission is to make vision technology and visual AI faster and more efficient by embedding intelligence in the sensor, starting at the pixel. Oculi makes the OCULI SPU, Sensing and Processing Unit. It is the only Software-Defined Vision Sensor that delivers real-time visual intelligence (VI) at the edge by combining sensing + pre-processing in the pixel. The OCULI SPU has parallel, in-memory computation, and dynamic optimization. Oculi vision is efficient and significantly faster than human vision, it can track a bullet in flight and in 3 dimensions. Oculi enables very competitive products in latency, bandwidth, power consumption, size, cost, and data security/privacy.
Currently, there are no tools available that can objectively analyze respiratory abnormalities in real-time without the presence of a trained clinical provider. Developed by the world's leading acousticians, signal processing experts and mechanical engineers at Johns Hopkins University, Sonavi Labs was formed to deploy Feelix, the only FDA cleared, HIPAA compliant remote monitoring platform embedded with state-of-the-art patented technology that uses clinically validated diagnostic software capable of detecting respiratory diseases and tracking longitudinal trends. The Feelix system is intended to enhance remote monitoring programs and ensure care teams have the most objective clinical data to triage, treat and monitor patients. Sonavi Labs aims to tackle the $65 billion market by ensuring broad access for all respiratory patients in need and offers the Feelix remote monitoring platform through a reimbursable Software as a Service (SaaS) model. There are opportunities for Sonavi Labs in device sales, cloud-based services, and advanced analytics and integration of audio files into electronic health records. The defensibility and protection of the technology through the 9 patents awarded to the company, ensure Sonavi's exclusive ability to capture significant market share and be regarded as leaders in the space.
A spinout from Johns Hopkins Medicine is commercializing a next-generation patient safety event reporting system that has been deployed across the entire Johns Hopkins Health System (JHHS) since 2021. SafeTower has obtained seed funding from JHHS for the commercialization effort. The solution was developed by safety experts at Johns Hopkins because they were frustrated by the solutions they had been using over the past many years. The safety experts from the Armstrong Institute decided to develop an application that uses innovative machine learning algorithms to submit, tag, and route events accurately and easily, helps managers identify similar events across the entire system, and identifies trends in safety events for system leaders. The application, HERO, uses an intuitive interface design that fosters deep collaboration between teams and allows all voices to be heard while remaining unseen, if needed. Since 2021, we have seen a 30+% increase in physicians reporting events, a 167% increase in feedback to reporters, a 20+% increase in ambulatory event reporting, and statistically significant improvement across 5 domains of user experience.
Calyx Systems Inc is commercializing a Smart Stent for Interventional and Interactive Radiology (IIR). The technology is based on a DARPA grant award to Columbia University in the area of Bioelectronics for Tissue Rejuvenation BETR. The Smart Stent is a microelectronic device that is bio compatible and compatible with current catheter delivery protocols. The device can in vivo induce electrical simulation, mechanical force and resonate tissue coupling to treat minimally evasively cardiovascular, renal and bladder and peripheral nervous system disfunctions. The Smart Stent is currently guided and powered by an external acoustic patch with initial indications of raising and lowering blood pressure and heart rate but electrical stimulation of the Vagus nerve and by peripheral nerve reinnervation through augmented signal to the effected area. This interventional approach is considered a novel medical device with required and associated regulatory approval and improves healthcare solutions through non-surgical procedures resulting in improved efficacy, reduced post procedure complications and greatly reduced cost and liability. The Calyx Systems Medical Device can operate in temporary or permanent environments.
Eosos' data analytics platform will discover biomarker signatures to successfully increase immunotherapy patient response rates by more than 3x. Immuno Oncology drugs only help 20% of patients they are used on - but 100% of patients incur the financial and side-effects burden of treatment. There are 4600+ open clinical trials in immuno oncology, with most proving safe and showing modest durable response in patients - just not a high enough % of response for FDA clearance. Nearly all drugs getting approved work on the same mechanism, which means we aren't currently solving the 20% problem. Eosos will change this by working with biotech and pharma to discover predictive biomarkers to effectively profile patients and match specific patients with the correct drug/drugs combination. Treatments directed by our biomarkers have proven to more than triple positive patient response rates - meaning more drugs and more types of drugs will be approved and available for patients. More patients will be cured. We are spinning out of Johns Hopkins University and commercializing this life-saving technology. We are architecting a SaaS data platform and building out a full-service lab to start working with pharma and biotech partners to solve this challenge, and preparing to develop clinical diagnostics with our client partners in the near future.
Prompt Diagnostics is building a low-cost, portable platform that can deliver lab-quality diagnostics to guide treatment in any clinical setting. With gold standard PCR assays delivered in under 20 minutes, our tests will enable clinicians to prescribe targeted therapy during the first patient visit. Our tests miniaturize and automate sample extraction and amplification of DNA and RNA targets in affordable USB-sized cartridges. High multiplexing capabilities allow the Prompt platform to not only identify multiple diseases simultaneously, but also genotype a wide variety of mutations to evaluate variants and predict antibiotic resistance in an era of rapidly evolving pathogens. Prompt platform development for an array of infectious diseases is currently supported by funding from the NIH, NSF, CDC, and Maryland Innovation Initiative.
Drug development is a complex process that requires careful coordination between early-stage R&D and early-/late-stage translational teams. For GI disorders, the problem is compounded given measurements involve colonoscopies, which are invasive and resource intensive, and stool or blood tests, which only measure a limited number of biomarkers. Therefore there is an opportunity for a versatile platform that can (1) Identify novel and druggable targets (early-stage development), (2) Stratify patients based on their gut RNA / microbiome profile (triangulated with other methodologies) to improve the safety and efficacy of early stage assets undergoing drug development (early stage and translational), and (3) Comprehensively phenotype patients for clinical trials via a decentralized sample collection approach to improve trial access and recruitment diversity (translational). Here, we present a novel technology, i.e., Exfo-seq, to monitor the gastrointestinal transcriptome directly from stool in a highly sensitive and non-invasive manner. Exfo-seq can be applied to understand the heterogeneity in inflammatory states, examine the local gut immune profile, and predict and monitor therapeutic response during clinical trials. Exfo-seq holds great potential as a non-invasive method to transform future pharmaceutical development for GI disorders.
Avant Photonics is providing a low-cost, high-performance shortwave infrared (SWIR) imaging solution. Compared to the incumbent technology, our product costs 10X less, with significantly enhanced sensitivity and imaging quality. SWIR imaging is vital to many industries, including defense, agriculture, and healthcare. The SWIR global market is projected to be $419M in 2027 with a CAGR of 11.4% (Fortune Business Insights). Moreover, we expect to broaden the market horizon as our device's high cost-effectiveness and performance would capture new markets. Thus, we anticipate a TAM of >$1B. Our vision is to democratize the global SWIR imaging market.
EDAC Labs is addressing decarbonization at the gigaton scale. Our core technology is an inexpensive, mainly plastic, electrochemical cell developed at John Hopkins. It creates acids and bases from brine streams at room temperature and pressure at half the energy of salt splitting, electrolysis, or the Chlor-Alkali process. This capability has broad and immediate applications for Direct Air Capture of CO2, Carbon Negative Mining of critical minerals from low grade ores, Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement, and ocean direct carbon capture, plus industrial process decarbonization. We have received $3.3MM in equity funding to date, are in the Third Derivative Accelerator, and have recently received a $500,000 prepurchase agreement for sequestering carbon from Frontier Climate/Stripe/ Shopify. Additionally, the technology is being funded by $2MM from the ARPA-E MINERS program. By January we expect to have achieved multi-ton scale continuous CO2 capture in conjunction with a major US cooling tower manufacturer and to have scaled up the cell 100x beyond the JHU lab in our own facility. We will be looking for raise an A round of $10-20MM in spring/summer of 2024 to leverage US DOE scaleup funding.
Kubanda is disrupting the $4B global market for veterinary tumors by providing a point-of-care, minimally invasive treatment via percutaneous, carbon dioxide-based cryotherapy. Pet parents are wary of expensive and invasive surgical mass removal and < 5% of all pet tumors are currently treated. Kubanda lets pets skip the scalpel. With a premium procedure that’s simpler than surgery, clinics can charge less while making more and providing higher-level care. The technology has been validated in clinical trials and is being used commercially in clinics and veterinary hospitals. Kubanda's marketing is starting by targeting small generalist vets before shifting to corporate practices. The pricing is $900/mo subscription or $5,000 upfront and $150/procedure for consumables such as probe tips, with a 70% gross margin for Kubanda. The team has experience in vet med, cryobiology, and sales and Kubanda has a patent pending for all CO2-based percutaneous cryotherapy. We are raising $1.6M in order to advance manufacturing capabilities and scale marketing and sales as we do a broad-market launch in 2024.
CurieDx is a software platform that solves for the lack of instant, home tests on telehealth. This work is born from Dr. Canares’ experience seeing high volumes of low acuity patients as a pediatric emergency room physician at Johns Hopkins University. Telehealth solves a critical gap for minor illnesses but lacks the ability to do point-of-care tests. Together with Dr. Unberath’s ARCADE Lab at JHU, they developed a way to predict conditions, like strep throat, using a smartphone image of the throat combined with computer vision and machine learning. They have proof of concept and submitted patent applications on models that predict strep throat and urinary tract infections with just smartphone images. This is a B2B SaaS platform that will offer a suite of digital biomarker tests, akin to the Labcorp for Telehealth, for virtual-first telehealth practices. These digital tests inform clinical decision making, guide antibiotic prescribing, and reduce the total cost of care by moving visits from in-person to virtual. They have research partnerships with PM Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins, Brown, and Dartmouth University to develop the image database and machine learning models. The team was awarded >$600k in grants, including a NSF SBIR Phase I, and is raising a pre-seed round of $500k in Q4 2023 to complete R&D on the machine learning models and conduct pilot tests.
Solv Endotherapy has developed an endoscopically delivered drug/device combination product addressing one of the most complex to treat gastrointestinal conditions, acute necrotizing pancreatitis (ANP). ANP is an extreme complication of acute pancreatitis in which pancreas tissue dies, becoming a nidus for infection. This can lead to mortality has high as 40%, morbidity has high as 95%, and direct medical costs as high as $200,000. Endoscopic interventions have recently produced more favorable results, but still require an average of 3-6 procedures and costs direct medical costs of ~$60,000. Time to resolution is a primary contributor to outcomes and costs. Rather than mechanically removing necrotic tissue in multiple procedures, our product will dissolve the necrotic tissue in a single session of endoscopy. This breakthrough will dramatically reduce mortality, morbidity, and costs. We will pursue an orphan-drug designation and conduct first-in-human trials in 2024. Solv was founded by experts in the field advanced GI endoscopy, drug development, medical device development, and commercialization. The market opportunity is focused and highly valuable to strategics in the GI space active in M&A, making it an attractive investment opportunity. The development and exit strategy are clear. We are currently raising a $2M seed round.
We have achieved a groundbreaking breakthrough in the treatment of haploinsufficiency disorders using an innovative gene therapy candidate. These disorders occur when individuals produce only half the required protein for a healthy life, leading to a range of debilitating conditions. Our technology holds immense potential in addressing this wide array of human diseases. We will focus on three specific haploinsufficiency disorders: SYNGAP1 deficiency, Rett syndrome, and CTNNB1 deficiency. These disorders are severe encephalopathies, causing significant cognitive impairment and drastically shortening the lifespan of affected patients. Unfortunately, there are currently no existing treatment options available for these conditions, making our research even more crucial. By developing and applying our gene therapy candidate, we aim to provide a groundbreaking solution for haploinsufficiency disorders. The potential impact of our research extends beyond the selected disorders to encompass the entire spectrum of these debilitating conditions. Our ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life for patients suffering from haploinsufficiency disorders and offer hope to their families who have been desperately waiting for effective treatments. In summary, our innovative gene therapy candidate represents a significant breakthrough in the treatment of haploinsufficiency disorders. Through our research, we hope to address the unmet medical needs of numerous patients, initially focusing on SYNGAP1 deficiency, Rett syndrome, and CTNNB1 deficiency. By targeting these severe encephalopathies without existing treatment options, we aim to extend lifespans and alleviate cognitive impairment, thereby making a profound impact on the lives of affected individuals.
Rover LightSpeed PCR is a point-of-care diagnostic system that will become the first system that is fast, economical and easy enough to use at an untapped $2B market: non-clinical POC PCR locations, including pharmacies, assisted living facilities, and schools. Current POC PCR systems today are too expensive, slow, and/or complicated to use at pharmacies. Rover’s platform features a simple load-and-go workflow, very low COGS consumable, and automated cloud connection for test registration and result reporting. Rover uses a patent-pending, unique optical PCR method that delivers under 20 minute sample to answer results, and a breakthrough consumable design that will deliver the lowest COGS of any PCR system. Very experienced team, including co-founders Mark Fasciano (CEO) and Professor Sam Sia (Columbia Dept of Bioengineering) are veteran entrepreneurs with a successful track record and multiple exits. Company has completed R&D, has built multiple prototypes with substantial clinical data, published a peer-reviewed paper, won a competitive NIH RADx $1M grant, and has raised approx. $7M to date. Seeking $5M Series A; use of proceeds: complete design freeze, clinical trial, FDA submission. Targeting 8-10x return within 3 years for Series A investors.
Carbon capture and storage is a critical tool to meet global climate goals, and access to permanent carbon storage is currently a bottleneck. Cella is addressing this problem by developing a novel method of mineral carbon storage in basalt. By taking captured CO2 and injecting it underground into basalt rocks, Cella turns CO2 it into a solid mineral. Mineralized carbon is the most stable form of carbon—therefore carbon sequestered in basaltic rock is locked away forever. Cella's new mineralization technique offers a low cost, scalable solution that can be tailored to different geographies, allowing for the rapid deployment of this storage solution globally.
ClearVision is developing a novel, non-invasive vision correction treatment. Currently 2.3 billion people need some form of vision correction. Prevalence of myopia (nearsightedness) in Western countries is about 70%, whereas in east Asia up to 90% of young adults are nearsighted. It is estimated that by 2050 a half of the world population will need vision correction (4.7 billion people). Current permanent vision correction options, refractive surgeries such as LASIK, are highly invasive, weaken cornea, and can have serious side effects. Mostly due to the fear factor the penetration depth of refractive surgeries is only 1%. We believe that non-surgical nature of our approach to vision correction will be much more appealing to a broader audience. We have shown proof-of-concept in a research setting and looking to raise seed round funds to build and test a pre-clinical prototype.
EpiWatch has solved the critical problem of alerting the caregivers of people with epilepsy when their loved one is unattended and having a dangerous tonic-clonic epileptic seizure (known as a “TCS” or “grand mal” seizure). EpiWatch is a software-based monitoring, detection, and alerting capability for non-stigmatizing and easily available consumer smartwatches beginning with Apple Watch®. Once alerted, the caregiver provides aid to or calls for help for the individual having the seizure to lower the risk of injury or death. The EpiWatch system, developed at Johns Hopkins University, is in a validation clinical trial with results expected in 2023 and clearance in 2024. EpiWatch is raising funds for its post-trial regulatory submission. EpiWatch is a unique investment opportunity: the company will be providing in the near term a clearly needed scalable service to people with epilepsy and their caregivers that directly impacts their quality of life and improves public health. In addition, the EpiWatch software platform and relationships with our future detect/alert customers are extensible into epilepsy disease management and patient care pathway management applications, as well as other movement disorders.
Neurologic Solutions is pioneering precision neuroimaging medicine - empowering clinicians for accurate epilepsy diagnosis and optimal treatment of neurological disorders. Since 2016, Neurologic has raised over $1M in translational funds to commercialize technologies developed in Dr. Sarma’s lab at Johns Hopkins. Her lab has been supported with $7M is sponsored research grants, which has led to 4 patents protecting state-of-the-art EEG software diagnostic solutions. These strong outcomes helped Neurologic recruit a seasoned team of business and engineering experts, with deep experience in the clinical and NeuroTech space. Neurologic’s new product, EpiScalp, applies advanced analytics to EEG data to assist neurologists in diagnosing epilepsy. EpiScalp is a novel algorithm that uses 20 minutes of scalp EEG to provide an epilepsy risk score ranging from 0-1 in just seconds. EpiScalp constructs a proprietary dynamic network model of the patient’s brain from EEG data and identifies pathological nodes. Importantly, EpiScalp has been tested retrospectively on 198 first visit patients who presented with normal (or inconclusive) EEGs and who all were initially diagnosed with epilepsy and sent home with anti-seizure medications. We demonstrated that EpiScalp reduced the misdiagnoses of these patients from 54% to 17%. EpiScalp enables patients to receive the correct diagnosis and treatment more quickly and enables epilepsy centers to operate more efficiently, decrease costs and increase revenue. EpiScalp also can reduce the $7B annual costs associated with misdiagnosing epilepsy. Neurologic is testing the same proprietary network modeling approach to identify a reliable EEG marker that can distinguish between frontal temporal dementia, Alzheimer’s and healthy controls. In a preliminary study with 80 patients, the new marker achieves a classification accuracy if 96% - paving the way to new markets with great clinical need for reliable diagnostics.
Cardiac radiofrequency ablation has less than 50% success rate for treatment of complex arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia. Currently, less than 50% of procedures result in chronic termination of a patient's arrhythmia. This is due to inadequate lesions being delivered, resulting in arrhythmia recurrence. There is a clinical need for reliable, independent assessment of targets for ablation and assessment of lesion quality during procedure to enable personalized therapy. Opticardio is a near infrared spectroscopy catheter and software used with the current electroanatomic mapping and radiofrequency ablation systems to reduce the rate of recurrence and reduce the procedure time. This is a transformational approach that targets and evaluates pathology in real time to measure lesion transmurality, steam pops and targets for ablation. Opticardio catheters have been demonstrated within acute swine in vivo and donor human hearts. Opticardio is addressing two large and growing global markets. The electroanatomic device market and the cardiac ablation catheter market. The value propositions are decreased procedure, fluoroscopy and anesthesia time, lower probability of complications, reduction in repeated ablation procedures, and lower medical expenses per patient. There is also a high potential for exit opportunities.
Arbon uses a 'humidity-swing' process to capture CO2 from the air. The sorbent binds CO2 when dry and releases it when wet. This process uses less energy than approaches that rely on changing temperature and pressure to release CO2. The sorbent’s ability to bind CO2 has been shown to remain stable over thousands of cycles. Both of these innovations could reduce the cost of DAC.
Lelantos is revolutionizing the world of gas sensing by developing a new generation of IoT compatible gas sensors targeted to high value monitoring applications in threat detection, industrial safety, environmental and air quality monitoring as well as medical diagnostics. Current gas sensors are based on optical and resistive technologies and suffer from inherent weaknesses such bulky size, high power consumption and high cost. As such they prohibit the effective monitoring in IoT oriented use cases that require large scale, pervasive sensing to be provided by autonomous, portable, battery operated sensors with wireless connectivity. In contrast, Lelantos sensors based on CMOS integrated piezoelectric resonator arrays can achieve up to 1000 times more compact size, lower power consumption and lower cost than currently utilized systems. As a foundationally superior sensing technology, Lelantos is enabling the widespread adoption of gas sensing in IoT applications and the disruption of the market providing a true chemical sensor for the Internet of Things.
Digital Chefs
Based on research from the lab of Hod Lipson, James and Sally Scapa Professor of Innovation in the Department of Mechanical Engineering; Co-Director, Maker Space Facility, Columbia University
Imagine a personal chef who knows your personal eating habits, dietary restrictions, all at the press of a button. At the Creative Machines Lab we are developing novel approaches to assembling cooked meals. We leverage additive manufacturing technology to deposit food ingredients and directed laser beams to cook food as it is being assembled. We have already proven the ability to print a host of different ingredients (e.g. doughs, meats, and vegetables) and cook a range of foods to varying degrees (e.g. browning, baking, and broiling). The true innovation lies in combining these two processes into one functional machine to provide end-to-end cooking at a local level. Being able to combine ingredients with precision heating techniques gives us limitless ability to create new flavor profiles and customized meals. Because we can control the deposition and heating of food via software, we can tailor the recipe and nutrition on a per person basis. This digital cooking technique has a number of applications including military, space, hospital, and commercial settings.
Werewool fibers are engineered to offer the textile industry performance properties and aesthetics without the high environmental cost of conventional synthetic fibers and dyes. Our technology uses engineered proteins to impart desired properties like color, stretch, and moisture management in our fibers, to offer a performance textile alternative that eliminates dependence on petroleum-based plastics, and toxic dyeing and finishing processes from the product life cycle. At the end of the product’s useful life, Werewool fibers are designed to go back to the earth as nutrients, offering a biodegradable, sustainable alternative to the growing $147B synthetic fiber market.
Aero Therapeutics is a seed stage medical device company developing a platform device that delivers oxygen therapies. Our first product PremieBreathe is focused on a neglected market with an urgent unmet need: premature babies and full-term babies who suffer from respiratory diseases. Our device is also positioned to disrupt incumbents who focus on adult COPD and sleep apnea.
Verinomics is a genomics, computational biology and gene editing company located at 5 Science Park, New Haven, CT. We specialize in identification, characterization and utility of genetic diversity in commercially-significant vegetable and commodity crops. The Company's proprietary genomics and computational platforms makes possible advanced crop breeding through accelerated germplasm development, genomic selection, commercial trait gene identification, and gene editing in elite germplasm.
Ganvix is bringing to market blue/green/UV VCSEL lasers, based on a proprietary nano-porous GaN (NP-GaN). Vertically emitting lasers (VCSELS) are one of the fastest growing technologies in infrared opto-electronics, but to date it has not been possible to manufacture these devises for lager markets requiring UV and visible wavelengths. The novel NP-GaN technology developed by Professor Jung Han at Yale University is the critical enabler, which has been exclusively licensed by Ganvix. Leveraging this technology, Ganvix lasers deliver superior wavelength control, smaller spot size, and array architectures addressing nascent billion dollar market opportunities in consumer, communications, medical, and industrial applications.
ReST Therapeutics, a Biotech created in 2020, is entering Clinical stage with it first drug candidate FENM. FENM is a proprietary NME selectively targeting two NMDA subtypes. In collaboration with University of Columbia, Ecole Normale Supérieure, and University of Montpellier, ReST’s FENM has demonstrated long term neuroprotection in AD models, in par with the most recent disease modifying proposals, while surpassing ketamine in stress induced cognitive impairment models and achieving complete Fear release, making PTSD and AD the natural therapeutic targets for FENM development. ReST is looking for financial and strategic partners to speed up its development by moving its core activities in the US.