DC Regional Universities Use Lean Startup in Healthcare | NSF I-CORPS

I have been following the NSF I-Corps experiment since its inception and have been pleasantly surprised by its growth and expanding reach. GWU, University of Maryland and Virginia Tech have taken the lead in our region (the DC I-Corps) and have some great people working on the program. I came across a piece from Stephanie Baum at Med City News highlighting some of the innovative teams and projects taking part. From Baum,

Here’s a sample of the healthcare and device technologies involved in the program, which runs through November 19.

University of Maryland, College Park

Myotherapeutics is developing a clinical assay for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Eva Chin, an assistant professor, leads the group.

George Washington University

Key Orthopedics has a 3D-printed polymer device for growing stem cells in bone and cartilage tissue and is led by Benjamin Holmes, a Ph.D student.

NanoChon is producing joint injury therapeutic technologies for extended and sustained biologic delivery. It’s led by Nathan Castro, a Ph.D. student.

Its exciting to see our local universities, their leaders, faculty, and graduate students learning to employ lean in the development of their ideas and technologies. Exciting time.

The Coming Entrepreneurial Tidal Wave: University Entrepreneurship 2.0 – David B. Lerner

I am not sure how I have missed David Lerner, Director of the Columbia University Venture Lab, but I have. Just found him. Here is a snippet from a post in December 2009 on the coming tidal wave of University Entrepreneurship:

According to AUTM statistics, American universities are now spinning-off companies based on university intellectual property at a clip approaching 600 per year. In addition, as demonstrated in a recent white-paper authored by a team led by MIT’s legendary Ed Roberts, this number of 600 per year is actually dwarfed by the thousands of other companies being launched each year by university entrepreneurs forming companies of their own that are not based on their university’s intellectual property. Another important development is the well-known fact that as the costs of launching a company continue to decrease due to the advent of cloud computing and the like- so has it steadily become much easier for university-age students to try their hand at entrepreneurship.

Over these past four years I have also observed more and more universities rising to the challenge of empowering and enabling their populations of fledgling entrepreneurs. More and more schools are offering entrepreneurship education and lectures, more and more tech transfer offices are setting up New Ventures divisions run by experienced entrepreneurs/investors and as a result we are seeing new programs bubbling up everywhere. It is now increasingly common to hear about various university programs offering entrepreneur office hours, seed-funding competitions and new entrepreneur-in-residence and/or venture mentorship services. Amazingly, such programs were the exception and not the rule when I first arrived on campus some four short years ago.

The Coming Entrepreneurial Tidal Wave: University Entrepreneurship 2.0 – David B. Lerner.