Blazer Bridge Fund continues encouraging innovative discoveries; announces 2024 winners

Written by: Amy Jones
Media Contact: Tehreem Khan

Blazer Bridge Fund provides financial support to innovative ideas and inventions by the UAB community, encouraging advanced discovery.

The Blazer Bridge Fund will provide support to six innovative projects by University of Alabama at Birmingham inventors, including a device to prevent neonatal apnea, a tool to help patients in intensive care units remain safely hydrated and continued development of a possible therapeutic target for Alzheimer's disease, among others.

The Blazer Bridge Fund, an initiative of the Harbert Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, was launched in 2023 to identify and assist in the development of promising ideas, discoveries, innovations and technologies from UAB faculty and staff that have commercial potential.

"We were highly impressed with the quality of applications we received for this year's Blazer Bridge Fund round, and the six that we selected all have tremendous potential," said HIIE's Executive Director Kathy Nugent, Ph.D. "We are especially excited that we awarded funding to inventors from the Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine, the School of Engineering, and the College of Arts and Sciences. We take pride in supporting UAB innovation from every corner of campus."

The six projects selected for the 2024 funding round are:

• Flexi-coat, an innovative solution for biomedical device coating, invented by Jesse Jones, M.D., of the Department of Neurosurgery, and Vinoy Thomas, Ph.D., of the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.
• Application to Predict and Prevent Neonatal Apnea (APPNEA), invented by Colm Travers, M.D., and Namasivayam Ambalavanan, M.D., of the Department of Pediatrics; and Arie Nakhmani, Ph.D., of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
• Characterizing UAB126 as a drug candidate for diabetic retinopathy, invented by Jeonga Kim, Ph.D., of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism; Venkatram Atigadda, Ph.D., of the Department of Dermatology; Maria Grant, M.D., of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences; and Marina Gorbatyuk, Ph.D., of the School of Optometry.
• Portable and scalable multifunctional plasma-catalytic membrane reactor, invented by Andrei Stanishevsky, Ph.D., Riley Yager, Riley Nick and John Conaway, of the Department of Physics.
• Fluid Aviator, a tool designed to address the issue of balancing adequate hydration and avoiding fluid overload while critically ill patients are in intensive care units, invented by David Askenazi, M.D., Nancy Tofil, M.D., and James Odum, M.D., of the Department of Pediatrics; and Andres Morales, Samuel Misko and Michael Brascome, of the School of Engineering.
• Development of target engagement biomarkers for Tau-SH3 inhibitors, invented by Erik Roberson, M.D., of the Department of Neurology.

The BBF brought in 27 applications for its second-ever round of funding, representing 62 inventors in 26 UAB departments and divisions across six schools and ArtPlay Community Education.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.