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Second Century Ventures Launches REach® Commercial Accelerator

No result found, try new keyword!WASHINGTON, Feb. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Second Century Ventures, the National Association of Realtors ® ' strategic investment arm, has launched REach ® Commercial, its first commercial real estate ...

Matthew Webber receives American Diabetes Association’s Accelerator Award

For parents of children with Type 1 diabetes, the threat of a hypoglycemic episode can keep them awake at night. Critically low blood glucose levels can lead to seizures, coma or death. With no warning of a sudden drop, some parents will wake up several times each night to check their child’s blood glucose level while they sleep. Sleep loss and stress can impact the parents’ own health and well-being — putting added strain on the whole family.

The issue is central to a five-year research effort funded by the American Diabetes Association (ADA). The ADA announced it will fund a $1.625 million Accelerator Award to Matthew Webber, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, to research and develop materials capable of sensing critical drops in blood glucose.

Presently, dangerously low hypoglycemia is treated by injecting glucagon, a hormone that counteracts the function of insulin to raise blood glucose levels. This places the responsibility of noticing such an episode and responding in time directly onto diabetics and their caregivers. “There is a significant challenge to developing a synthetic form of glucagon that would remain in the body but be inactive until such a time as blood glucose levels become dangerously low, when it would become active,” said Webber. “This is something that has never been done before. Our team will explore different chemistries and methods for protein activation over the course of the study.”

Research would focus on development of glucose-responsive glucagon. If successful, glucose-responsive glucagon could be administered to patients with Type 1 diabetes in a manner similar to an EpiPen before bed. Sensing a critical drop in blood glucose, the modified glucagon could be activated to restore normal glucose levels and alleviate the severe risks associated with hypoglycemia. “If we are successful, this new approach would act as an insurance policy, offering peace of mind to diabetic individuals and their caregivers.” Webber’s previous work includes developing synthetically modified insulin with glucose-modulated potency, capable of correcting blood glucose levels quickly to manage the disease more accurately.

The Accelerator Awards are designed to support early-career investigators, and are part of a larger initiative by the American Diabetes Association known as the Pathway to Stop Diabetes, seeking to recruit investigators across disciplines in an effort to radically transform diabetes research.       

Contact: Jessica Sieff, assistant director of media relations, 574-631-3933, jsieff@nd.edu

New accelerator program seeks to bring Maine bioscience discoveries to market

The National Institutes of Health believes that the U.S. is missing out on important scientific discoveries in smaller states such as Maine because they lack the resources to move those discoveries out of laboratories and into the marketplace.

It recently awarded a $3.5 million grant to create a technology transfer accelerator program for biotech startups in Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware and New Hampshire. The goal is to spur development and commercialization of human health-focused bioscience discoveries in those states.

Kevin Strange

The program, dubbed the DRIVEN Biomedical Technology Accelerator Hub, is one of four such programs funded by NIH grants in different regions of the U.S. In Maine, the program is being overseen by representatives of MDI Biological Laboratory in Bar Harbor and Maine Medical Center in Portland.

“Why should great ideas wither on the vine because they’re not in Boston, or San Francisco, or Silicon Valley or one of those places?” said Kevin Strange, president of Novo Biosciences, a biomedical startup based in Lamoine, just south of Ellsworth.

Strange, who is acting as co-investigator for the accelerator program in Maine, said his company has discovered a molecule that could lead to products that regenerate damaged human tissues. He said he knows firsthand the frustration of trying to capitalize on cutting-edge scientific discoveries in a state that lacks adequate resources such as venture capital and product-development expertise.

The initial goal of the accelerator program is to identify five promising biomedical startups by the end of March and then start working with them in June, Strange said. The program will provide them with resources such as training, mentoring, networking and access to potential investors.

“What I’d like to see is a lot more of this activity happening in Maine,” he said.

Todd Keiller, Maine Med’s representative to the accelerator program, said it will be highly competitive with ventures in the five states vying for one of five spots in the program. Still, he said all candidates will receive valuable feedback and gain access to certain resources.

An external advisory board chosen by the program’s lead organizers at Dartmouth College will choose the most promising-looking ventures to add to the accelerator’s first cohort, Keiller said.

“It’s all about commercialization and moving ideas to the marketplace,” he said.

Agnieszka Carpenter, executive director of the Portland-based Bioscience Association of Maine, said the NIH-funded accelerator program differs from other biotech transfer efforts in Maine because of its relatively high budget.

Carpenter would consider the accelerator program a success if it helps prevent some Maine bioscientists from leaving the state with their promising discoveries to find greater opportunities for commercialization in places such as Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“It’s really not great if the talented scientists that come out of Maine leave,” she said.

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