The Imagine, Innovate, and Impact Awards – or I3 – were launched in 2018 to encourage connections between disciplines and accelerate the pace of discovery. A total of $595,000 was awarded during the first round to fund projects in both research and education.
On February 1, 2019, a new category of I3 awards was launched - the Venture Research Awards - with the intention of identifying promising early-stage concepts with commercial potential that do not yet qualify for funding from external sources. Twelve proposals from 11 SOM departments were submitted and more than 15 faculty, staff and partners with specialized expertise in innovation and entrepreneurship participated in the review process. A total of $100,000 will be awarded to teams led by the following investigators:
- Ray Dingledine and Thota Ganesh (pharmacology and chemical biology): New efficacy studies with novel EP2 receptor antagonists
- Mark Goodman (radiology and imaging sciences) and Robert Taylor (medicine, biomedical engineering): Novel PET imaging agent for the detection of bacterial infections
- Carlos Moreno (pathology and laboratory medicine) and Christian Larsen (surgery): ResonanceDx creatinine POC test
- Edmund Waller and Gregory Lesinski (hematology and medical oncology): Enhancing responsiveness of pancreatic cancer to immunotherapy
- Chunhui Xu and Joshua Maxwell (pediatrics): High-throughput screening for antiarrhythmic drugs using cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells