The 2024 Class of the Bridging Academia and Industry education program concluded last month with a project competition, where five teams of investigators pitched their challenge-driven research projects to teaching faculty and leadership from academia and industry.
The projects pitched this year included new strategies to address challenges in Alzheimer’s disease, wound healing, cancer, food allergies and substance use disorder.
After a lengthy discussion by the faculty judges, the team of Rachel Bennett, PhD, (Neurology), Matt Dubach, PhD, (Imaging), Asif Jamil, PhD, (Psychiatry), and Milica Margeta, MD, PhD, (Ophthalmology) were chosen as the winners for their project, Tauvision: Eyedrops for Diagnosing Alzheimer’s Disease.
The team received a one-year, $150,000 award (funded by philanthropy) to support future development of their project, which seeks to develop a non-invasive eyedrop-based diagnostic test for harmful proteins in the retina that are highly correlated to Alzheimer’s disease in the brain.
2024 Bridging Academia and Industry Competition Teams and Projects
There were a total of 19 investigators in this year’s program, representing 12 departments, divisions and thematic centers from Mass General, Mass Eye and Ear and Spaulding.
Since the program launched in 2019, a total of 115 investigators have participated, representing 18 clinical departments across the Mass General Brigham system and all five thematic research centers at Mass General.
About Bridging Academia and Industry
The class of 2024 is the sixth to complete the Bridging Academia and Industry education program, which is co-directed by Gabriela Apiou, PhD, Director of Strategic Alliances for the Mass General Research Institute, Endowed MGH Research Institute Chair in Translational Sciences, and director of Translational Research Core at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine, and Bob Tepper, MD, Partner, Third Rock Ventures, and member of the Research Institute Advisory Council.
A key pillar of the Longfellow Project, the program is taught and mentored by more than 70 expert faculty leaders from academia and the biopharmaceutical, medical device and venture industries.
Course topics include:
● Fundamentals of translation
● Research and development (therapeutics, diagnostics and intellectual property
● Business development and commercialization (go-to-market planning, exit strategies)
● Translation stories (therapeutics, diagnostics).
“This course is about establishing a new culture and field of investigation,” Apiou says. “Inspiring the trainees to enter the field of translational sciences; learning the academia-industry language; and understanding what it really takes to go from an idea in the lab to a diagnostic or treatment are our overarching goals.”