As mentioned in the first of the four blogs in this series, the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (Indiana CTSI) set a record last year for supported research projects that have reached the technology transfer phase of their development, including twelve projects that filed invention disclosures with the Indiana University Research and Technology Corp. (IURTC). I am highlighting four of the twelve projects to have entered the commercialization process over the past year. The first blog highlighted Dr. Craig Erickson’s autism research project.

The second project is advancing a new approach to the treatment of bacterial infections by Stan Spinola, M.D., professor and chair of microbiology and immunology, who cited Indiana CTSI funding as a key contributor to early validation of his concept.  His idea, disabling the bacteria’s own stress response system, was recently  protected by IURTC through filing a provisional patent application. The invention’s different mode of action has great commercialization potential because current antibiotics have been exploiting the same basic set of biological pathways over the past 40 years, which has led to bacterial resistance to these drugs. In 2011, Dr. Spinola received more than $21,000 from the Indiana CTSI Clinical Project Development Team to support this research as well as services from the Indiana CTSI Clinical Research Center, Bioethics and Subject Advocacy Program, and Design and Biostatics Program. 

This is the second of four blogs. Check back soon for the next posting in the series on Indiana CTSI/IURTC-supported projects.