Advancing Discovery to Market
Award Recipients
Type 1 Awards
Among recipients, principal investigators are:
- Vishal Gohil, Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Developing a therapeutic for genetic disorders of copper deficiency,” $99,000.
- Natalie Johnson, Public Health, “Optimization of clay-based filter to remove ‘forever’ chemicals from milk,” $99,000.
- Patricia Pietrantonio, Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Discovery of two small drug-like structural analog molecules with acaricidal and mosquitocidal activity, including a tick-pyrethroid resistant strain,” $98,724.
- Tristen Slamowitz, Engineering Medicine, “NP41-SPION nerve detection,” with co-principal investigators Cooper Lueck and Grace Gasper, Engineering Medicine, $99,000.
- Nithya Subramanian, Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Development of non-transgenic herbicide-resistant wheat,” with co-principal investigator Muthukumar Bagavathiannan, Jackie Rudd, Shuyu Liu and Russell Sutton, Agriculture and Life Sciences, $98,938.
- Junjie Zhang, Agriculture and Life Sciences, “EPPPL: an evolvable phage-based pilus-targeting protein library for controlling bacteria,” with co-principal investigator Jirapat Thongchol, Agriculture and Life Sciences, $99,000.
Type 2 Awards
Among the recipients, principal investigators are:
Maria Isabel Vales, Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Gene-edited waxy potatoes developed by Texas A&M University for food and industrial applications,” with co-principal investigators Keerti Rathore and Stephany Toinga-Villafuerte, Agriculture and Life Sciences, $355,427.
Gerard Cote, Engineering, “Non-Invasive wearable device for monitoring continuous cuffless blood pressure,” with co-principal investigators Carl Tong, Medicine, and Justin McMurray and Kimberly Branan, Engineering, $398,560.
Type 1 Awards
Among recipients, principal investigators are:
- Charles Aubeny, College of Engineering, “Field demonstration of deeply embedded ring anchor for floating offshore wind turbines,” $99,000.
- Moble Benedict, College of Engineering, “Advanced eVTOL aircraft and propulsion concepts for urban air mobility,” with co-principal investigator David Coleman, College of Engineering, $98,692.
- Saurabh Biswas, College of Engineering, “Pneumatos: Personalized airway clearance therapy for chronic respiratory and neuromuscular disorders,” with co-principal investigator John Criscione, College of Engineering, $96,000.
- Amit Dhingra, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Development of gene-edited high-value crops without genetic engineering,” with co-principal investigator Rishikesh Ghogare, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, $99,000.
- Lei Fang, College of Arts and Sciences, “Recovery of lithium and transition metals from produced water sources,” with co-principal investigator Sarbajit Banerjee, College of Arts and Sciences, $99,000.
- Jason Gill, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, “A powerful phage-based technology for therapeutic protein overproduction and delivery,” with co-principal investigator Mei Liu, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, $98,859.
- Lawrence Griffing, College of Arts and Sciences, “Development of an organic, broad-spectrum pre-emergent herbicide,” with co-principal investigators Bob Whitney, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Muthu Bagavathiannan, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, $98,000.
- Seockmo Ku, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, “The next generation of meat preservatives and colorants: Monascus pigments and their derivatives as natural alternatives to sodium nitrite,” with co-principal investigator Wes Osburn, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, $99,000.
- Ying Li, College of Engineering, “Scalable synthesis of purified and functionalized carbon nanotubes,” $99,000.
- David Powers, College of Arts and Sciences, “Targeting aspartate and glutamate residues with n-pyridinium and n-aryl aziridine small molecules,” $98,862.
- Ursula Winzer-Serhan, College of Medicine, “Positive activators of alpha7-nACh receptors for treating seizures and epileptogenesis,” with co-principal investigator Samba Reddy, College of Medicine, $99,000.
Type 2 Awards
Among the recipients, principal investigators are:
- John Cason, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Advancing high oil content cultivars: A revolutionary opportunity for peanut farming and renewable fuel production,” with co-principal investigators Mark Burrow, Waltram Ravelombola, Emi Kimura and Lileen Coulloudon, Texas A&M AgriLife Research, $225,000.
- Richard Gomer, College of Arts and Sciences, “Advancing potential therapeutics for fibrosing diseases to licensing,” with co-principal investigators Thomas Meek, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and James Smith, College of Arts and Sciences, $295,888.
- Jaime Grunlan, College of Engineering, “Durable, environmentally benign, flame-retardant treatment for textiles,” $349,576.
- Jean-Philippe Pellois, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Innovative delivery technology for neuroprotective protein delivery in acute retinal injuries,” $500,000.
- Xiaotong Song, College of Medicine, “Refueled HER2-CAR T cell therapy to cure breast cancer,” $500,000.
- Hamid Toliyat, College of Engineering, “Advancing electric vehicle propulsion: High power rare-earth-free electric motor development,” with co-principal investigator Alan Palazzolo, College of Engineering, $499,800.
Type 1 Awards
Among the second-round recipients, principal investigators are:
- James Batteas, College of Arts and Sciences, “Advanced haptics using photofriction,” with co-principal investigator Dr. Cynthia Hipwell, College of Engineering, $98,929.
- Dhruva Chakravorty, Texas A&M High Performance Research Computing (HPRC), “Licensing synthetic applications benchmarks strategies to advance cyberinfrastructure (CI) technologies, composability, and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) frameworks,” with co-principal investigators Dr. Honggao Liu and Dr. Lisa Perez, HPRC, $85,803.
Type 2 Awards
Among the second-round recipients, principal investigators are:
- Waltram Ravelombola, Texas A&M AgriLife Research, “Advancing new short-season and high-protein blackeye peas to market,” with co-principal investigators Lileen Coulloudon and Sean Stephens, AgriLife Research, $127,663.
- Zachary C. Grasley, College of Engineering, “Low carbon footprint pliant concrete for sustainable, affordable drainage structures,” with co-principal investigator Dr. Xijun Shi, College of Engineering, $230,712.
- Angela Arenas-Gamboa, School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, “Development and evaluation of a vaccine against brucellosis,” with co-principal investigator Dr. Allison Ficht, School of Medicine, $250,000.
- Wenshe Liu, College of Arts and Sciences, “Outshining Paxlovid: SR-B-103 and YR-C-136 as next-generation, standalone COVID-19 medications for treatment and prevention,” with co-principal investigator Dr. Shiqing Xu, College of Arts and Sciences, $500,000
Type 1 Awards
Principal investigators for each of these 11 funded projects are:
- Swapnil Samant, Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), “Hazmat identification in transportation corridors using advanced AI techniques,” $99,530, with co-principal investigators Dr. David Bierling, Leonard Ruback and Bradley A. Trefz, all from TTI.
- Dr. Zhilei Chen, School of Medicine, “Novel therapeutics for treating S. aureus infection,” $99,000, with co-principal investigator Dr. Magnus Höök, Institute of Biosciences and Technology.
- Dr. Mahua Choudhury, School of Pharmacy, “Saving mother and newborn with miRNA-epigenetic method,” $99,000.
- Dr. Shoshana Eitan, College of Arts and Sciences, “Novel oral pharmaceutical antidepressants,” $99,000, with co-principal investigators Dr. Robert S. Chapkin, Texas A&M AgriLife Research, and Dr. Stephen Safe, School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
- Dr. Shaodong Guo, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Discovery of novel chemical inhibitors for heme-oxygenase-1 in treatment of Type 2 diabetes mellitus and NASH,” $99,000, with co-principal investigator Dr. Wenshe Liu, College of Arts and Sciences.
- Dr. Jayshree Mishra, School of Pharmacy, “Developing a new class of Jac3-directed chemo therapeutics for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer-brain metastasis,” $99,000, with co-principal investigator Dr. Narendra Kumar, School of Pharmacy.
- Dr. Ali Mostafavidarani, College of Engineering, “AI-empowered digital twin for climate resilience analytics,” $99,000.
- Dr. Patrick Shamberger, College of Engineering, “Robust, low-cost thermal energy storage media for HVAC and heat pumps,” $99,000, with co-principal investigator Dr. Svetlana Sukhishvili, College of Engineering.
- Dr. Nancy Downing, School of Nursing, “Text-SAFE: Innovative technology to provide follow-up care after sexual assault,” $98,975, with co-principal investigator Dr. Farzan Sasangohar, College of Engineering.
- Dr. Sanjay Antony-Babu, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Developing biofertilizer inoculum towards sustainable corn production,” $90,084, with co-principal investigator Dr. Julio Bernal, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
- André Thomas, School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts, “Digital replica platform,” $81,389.
Type 2 Awards
Principal investigators for each of the five funded projects are:
- Dr. Arum Han, College of Engineering, “Rapid development of next-generation antibiotic and antifungals,” $500,000, with co-principal investigator Dr. Arul Jayaraman, College of Engineering.
- Dr. Arthur Sefiani, School of Medicine, “IND-enabling studies on 5c(i) for traumatic spinal cord injury,” $499,637, with co-principal investigators Dr. Kevin Burgess, College of Arts and Sciences; Dr. Cedric G. Geoffroy, School of Medicine; and Dr. James Sacchettini, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
- Dr. Dinakar Sagapuram, College of Engineering, “MetPeel: Disruptive technology for steel strip production,” $497,591, with co-principal investigator Dr. Prabhakar Pagilla, College of Engineering.
- Dr. Ziyaur Rahman, School of Pharmacy, “N-nitroso impurity free varenicline stable formulations of varenicline hydrochloride for smoking cessation,” $496,117, with co-principal investigator Dr. Mansoor Khan, School of Pharmacy.
- Dr. Aaron Morton, School of Education and Human Development, “Effectiveness and toxicology of dystrophix in a large animal model of muscle dystrophy,” $495,972, with co-principal investigators Dr. Mariana Gomes, School of Education and Human Development, and Dr. Peter P. Nghiem, School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.