Tuesday, December 16, 2008

MLSC names winners of $3.7M in grants

By Mass High Tech staff

The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center announced the six grant winners of the agency’s first Cooperative Research Grant Program, which awards more than $3.7 million to promising scientists, academic institutions and industry developers, whose work has commercialization potential. The winners will receive funds for the work which will be matched by industry partners in the field.

The board of directors chose the six grant recipients from 27 submissions.

University of Massachusetts Lowell professor Rudolf Faust, along with postdoctoral and graduate students at UMass Lowell and Boston Scientific Corp., will receive a three-year grant of $199,596 per year for their nanomanufacturing of a special polymer-based lead coating of pacemakers and defibrillators.

Harvard Medical School professor Judy Lieberman, along with the Immune Disease Institute and Epic Therapeutics Inc., will receive a three-year grant of $250,000 per year for testing antiviral transmission effects that could be extended to HIV transmission between women and newborns.

Harvard University physics professor David Weitz, along with Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Raindance Technologies Inc., will receive a three-year grant of $250,000 per year for development of individual cell data collector via a fluorescence-activated cell sorter.

Andrew Luster, chief of the division of rheumatology, allergy and immunology at Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as Idera Pharmaceuticals Inc., will receive a three-year grant of $63,100 per year for determining the TLR7 and TLR9 molecules’ inhibitor effect on human immune cells.

Richard Lee and Parth Patwari of Harvard Medical School, along with Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Biomeasure Inc., will receive a three-year grant of $250,000 per year for protein development that could lead to post-traumatic cartilage regeneration and osteoarthritis therapy.

Michael Czech and Gary Ostroff of UMass Medical School, along with RXI Pharmaceuticals Inc., will receive a three-year grant of $249,593 per year to develop orally administered RNAi treatment.