5 teams win $75K through EnTRUST Life Sciences Accelerator cohort
The program supports life sciences researchers in Puerto Rico, accelerating technology transfer and commercialization.
Five teams of researchers recently won $75,000 each following the conclusion of the 12-week EnTRUST Life Science Accelerator boot camp for life sciences researchers and their specific projects with potential for technology transfer and commercialization.
The 2024 cohort’s funded teams were led by Eduardo J. Juan, Cornelis Vlaar, Michelle Martínez-Montemayor, Caroline Appleyard and Maribella Domenech. The teams were selected based on several criteria, including unmet clinical need, innovation, experimental plan, intellectual property and regulatory strategy, with each team receiving $75,000 in funding.
The program’s goal is to accelerate research projects in Puerto Rican universities by leveraging internal and external resources to bring them closer to market readiness, said initiative organizers at the Puerto Rico Science, Technology and Research Trust’s Technology Transfer Office (TTO) and Research Grants Program, in cooperation with Columbia University’s Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research Life Science Accelerator Lab to Market Boot Camp.
“The Trust TTO’s mission is to identify, assess, protect, market and transfer the most promising research discoveries from Puerto Rico’s universities, institutions and research institutes to the private sector for commercialization and to benefit the public,” said David Gulley, executive director of the TTO.
“With this fourth cohort of the Lab to Market session, we’re facilitating our scientist’s path to innovation, helping retain talent, and supporting Puerto Rico’s scientific and economic growth,” he said.
Since its launch in 2021, EnTRUST has awarded 16 grants of $75,000 each, totaling $1.2 million in funding. This year’s cohort consisted of 17 research teams, comprising 27 investigators from four universities and one startup.
“Our mission at the Trust is to invest, facilitate and develop the capabilities necessary to continuously advance Puerto Rico’s economy and the well-being of its citizens through innovation-based enterprises, science, technology, research and public health,” said Science Trust CEO Lucy Crespo.
“Helping researchers find new routes for their inventions is a vital task that we are very pleased to do, as it yields significant returns on investment and generates new intellectual property for science and the economy,” she said.
This cohort’s participants worked on projects in strategic areas such as therapeutics, cancer and medical devices. Participant researchers shared their experiences and the impact on their careers in research and development.
“Participating in EnTRUST increased our entrepreneurship knowledge, mindset and skill set. EnTRUST allowed us to propose our basic science research ideas from a business perspective. In EnTRUST, there is also a possibility of securing funding to execute the crucial experiments needed to advance our project to the next level,” Martínez-Montemayor said.
