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IU faculty-developed startup transforms nursing home patient care

Posted on by Bri Heron

To improve the quality of care for nursing home residents, researchers at Indiana University have translated their research into practice through a startup called Probari.

The health care services startup was developed by Kathleen Unroe, a professor of medicine at the IU School of Medicine and a research scientist at the IU Center for Aging Research at the Regenstrief Institute. The Indianapolis-based company gathers patient treatment history from hospital records and charts, offloading activities from nursing home staff so they can focus on providing day-to-day patient care. Since its founding in 2018 with financial and planning support from IU Ventures, IU’s early-stage venture and angel investment arm, Probari has supported over 100 nursing homes in the Midwest.

Portrait of Kathleen Unroe
Kathleen Unroe

Each year, approximately 30% of long-stay nursing home residents are hospitalized, and hospital transfers can be traumatic and costly for nursing home patients. Unroe’s research focuses on improving quality of care — particularly access to palliative and end-of-life care — for nursing home residents.

For nearly 10 years, Unroe and colleagues worked to reduce hospitalizations through a $30.3 million OPTIMISTIC project — Optimizing Patient Transfers, Impacting Medical Quality and Improving Symptoms — funded by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovations Center.

“The model utilizes a team of nurses to improve the clinical care for residents through quality care audits and reviews of transitions of care,” Unroe said. “The nurses are another set of eyes on the care in facilities as they provide early detection for interventions of care and suggest recommendations on improving processes.”

The demonstration project was implemented in 40 nursing homes across Indiana, reducing avoidable hospitalizations by 33%, reducing spending for hospitalizations by 25% per resident and saving more than $3.4 million in Medicare expenditures. The OPTIMISTIC model is now licensed to Probari and will be used to deliver virtual support services to nursing home staff.

Licensing this model into practice through the creation of Probari streamlined nursing home processes so patients can receive much-needed care, while optimizing workloads of nursing home staff.

“We are excited to continue expanding this model into more nursing homes, so that we can improve quality of care for residents and support nursing home staff,” Unroe said.

Portrait of Susan Hickman
Susan Hickman

Unroe also co-leads the APPROACHES project — Aligning Patient Preferences: A Role Offering Alzheimer’s Patient, Caregivers and Healthcare Providers Education and Support — with Susan Hickman, the Cornelius and Yvonne Pettinga Professor of Medicine at the IU School of Medicine and the director of Center for Aging Research at the Regenstrief Institute, which strives to improve advanced care planning in nursing home patients with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias.

“We designed APPROACHES to help equip facilities with resources on how to facilitate important conversations regarding care for these residents,” Hickman said. “Study outcomes will be available within the next year to examine how this systematic documentation affected treatment outcomes including hospitalization and emergency department visits.”

Unroe has disclosed her work and has filed patents with the help of the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office to continue improving nursing home facilities across the nation.

IU Kelley School of Business course introduces students to the life sciences industry, potential career opportunities

Posted on by Bri Heron

Indiana University Bloomington students are diving into the life sciences industry by learning about its complexities and intricate network of relationships that aid in bringing innovative health solutions to market.

IU undergraduate student Izzy Branam, a member of the team leading Indianapolis-based startup Relate XR, addresses an IU Kelley School of Business class that exposes students to the breadth of the life sciences industry.
IU undergraduate student Izzy Branam, a member of the team leading Indianapolis-based startup Relate XR, addresses an IU Kelley School of Business class that exposes students to the breadth of the life sciences ecosystem and available career opportunities in the industry.

The IU Innovation and Commercialization Office is a sponsor of a course offered by the IU Kelley School of Business, “Life Sciences from Research to Patients.” It provides students with opportunities to hear from industry professionals and participate in a real-world project focused on solving a market problem.

Offered to both undergraduate and graduate students, the class provides the 43 students with an opportunity to use what they’ve heard from the guest speakers and from guest lecturers in its companion course, “Life Sciences Global Trends.”

Each class in the course covers a different part of the healthcare ecosystem, while three guest lecturers present, take group questions and answer one-on-one questions from students. The sponsored funds, provided by the ICO, will go toward providing prize money for the top final student presentations.

“This course gives students an idea of the breadth of the healthcare ecosystem and, through all the guest lecturers brought in, examples of career paths available in the industry,” said George Telthorst, a senior lecturer and director of the Center for the Business of Life Sciences at the Kelley School. “Due to its industry focus, besides those in Kelley, it attracts students from a variety of other programs on campus like healthcare management, biotech, biology and public health.”

Lakshmi Sastry-Dent, a senior manager of biotechnology and life sciences within the ICO, presented to students about the technology commercialization process for bringing life science technologies to market to address critical issues. In the class, Lakshmi covered the basics of academic tech transfer and how ICO supports the transition of IU research from discovery to market.

“This class is an excellent opportunity for students to learn more about the life sciences industry and explore career opportunities they might not have considered previously,” said Sastry-Dent. “I enjoyed participating in this class tremendously, as the students were very engaged and asked thoughtful questions.”

Telthorst organized the course to expose students to different sectors of the life sciences industry, such as medical devices, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and the basic sciences to give them an understanding of some of the challenges and opportunities the industry currently faces.

Unlike most programs that only cover one portion of the life science industry, the class spans the entire life sciences spectrum, allowing students to understand the whole value chain and how each part of the puzzle aids in bringing healthcare and medical products to the market.

Rex Rumsey, an MBA student at Kelley, said that the class offers an insider’s view of one of the largest and most unique markets, and seamlessly bridges academic learning with real-world application. By collaborating with industry professionals and interdisciplinary peers, Rumsey said he is able develop the skills needed to tackle multifaceted challenges in innovative, cutting-edge ways.

During the course, the students engage with Relate XR, an IU faculty startup, headquartered in Indianapolis, that leverages virtual reality technology to address substance abuse disorders, to develop an innovative commercialization plan that addresses a market problem.

Relate XR is one of several IU-affiliated companies that will compete for top honors next month at the 2025 Mira Awards, which honor the best innovations and tech entrepreneurs in Indiana. The company’s founding team members include co-founder Brandon Oberlin, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the IU School of Medicine with 20 years of experience in addictions research; IU Bloomington digital arts graduate Andrew Nelson, who owns Indianapolis-based gaming company Half Full Nelson; and Izzy Branam, of Zionsville, Indiana, an undergraduate student studying organizational and business psychology in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at IU Bloomington’s College of Arts and Sciences. Branam also serves as a community manager at IU Innovates, a university-wide initiative to support faculty and student entrepreneurs.

“Through partnership with Relate XR, I am gaining the opportunity to transform ideas into impact, mastering the art of navigating stakeholders and crafting scalable business models that can redefine patient care,” Rumsey said.

IU researcher receives award to advance development of new therapeutic to combat HIV-1 latency 

Posted on by Bri Heron

To advance faculty research and enhance the commercialization of Indiana University innovations, the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office has awarded the Lawrence Blatt Endowed Fund for Translational Research to Adarsh Dharan, an assistant professor of biology at IU Bloomington.

Head shot of Adarsh Dharan
Adarsh Dharan

The Lawrence Blatt Endowed Fund for Translational Research is designed to support the development of translational research projects in the sciences with industry partners, the establishment of new companies, strengthen patent applications based on research discoveries, and introduce faculty members to IU’s innovation and commercialization ecosystem. The $24,000 award will cover obtaining reagents, consumables and pay for core facilities that are crucial for generating data for Dharan’s project.

“By leveraging both fundamental research and its translational potential, this project promises to generate insights that will impact not just the field of HIV research but also the lives of patients,” said Nick Hammond, associate vice president of innovation and commercialization. “Dr. Dharan’s research exemplifies cutting-edge innovation in the fight against HIV. We are proud to support this vital research, which could bring us one step closer to eradicating HIV latency and improving treatment outcomes for millions worldwide.”

The Innovation and Commercialization Office works closely with faculty, industry and Indiana’s entrepreneurial community to move innovations from IU research into the marketplace, where they can create lasting societal impact. Over the past 15 years, IU has received 2,675 disclosures, resulting in 1,340 issued patents generating 559 licenses, 71 startups and $113 million in revenue.

The award to Dharan is made possible through the generosity of IU alumnus Lawrence M. Blatt, a pioneering virologist and biopharma entrepreneur. Blatt, who earned a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from IU Bloomington’s College of Arts and Sciences in 1983, has cofounded two biopharmaceutical companies and, in 2018, became the CEO of the second one: Aligos Therapeutics, a San Francisco-based biotech discovering and developing curative treatments for hepatologic diseases and viral infections.

Meet Adarsh Dharan

Dharan’s research focuses on identifying therapeutic intervention towards eradicating HIV’s latent reservoir, which is when the HIV virus lays dormant in the body’s immune system cells and does not actively produce new virus particles, making the disease difficult to cure.

Approximately 39.9 million people were living with HIV globally at the end of 2023. However, there is still very little understanding about the process of HIV-1 latency and its contributing factors and there is low efficacy for the drugs that are developed and in clinical trials that attempt to reactivate latency.

Dharan has developed a method that can force HIV-1 to latent reservoir through manipulating the nuclear entry routes of HIV-1. This nuclear entry is through the nuclear pore complex machinery that would allow HIV-1 to enter the nucleus and establish a productive infection.

“As a new junior investigator at IU, this award will enable my lab to generate more preliminary data, which would set the stage for characterizing the mechanism that dictates HIV-1 latency in greater detail and thus identify potential targets for HIV-1 latency reversal.” Dharan said. “This award will help drive my research forward and thus establishing my independent research and funding in the field of infectious diseases.”

Dharan’s goal is to identify potential viral and host targets that dictate viral latency, which allows for the creation of improved latency reversal agents for more effective treatments.

“It is an honor to be the recipient of the Blatt award and to work towards the vision of Lawrence M. Blatt, to contribute towards potential treatment and cure strategies for infectious diseases,” he said.

IU innovation, startup leaders set to shine at the “Oscars of Indiana Tech”

Posted on by Ryan Piurek

Just how much is Indiana University driving Indiana’s culture of innovation and entrepreneurship?

Look no further than the list of nominees for the 2025 Mira Awards, honoring the best of tech in Indiana.

TechPoint, Central Indiana Corporate Partnership’s industry-led growth initiative for Indiana’s digital innovation economy, recently announced more than a dozen IU-affiliated tech leaders and innovations as finalists for the awards. Now in their 26th year—and commonly known as the “Oscars of Indiana Tech”—the Mira Awards continue to shine a spotlight on IU’s increasing commitment to the pursuit of groundbreaking discoveries and development of the state’s startup ecosystem.

Photo of IU undergraduate student Izzy Branam speaking at an Indiana University podium.
IU undergraduate student Izzy Branam is a member of the team leading Relate XR, which received four Mira Awards nominations, including “Startup of the Year.” The company combines psychology with virtual reality technology to treat substance abuse disorders. Photo by Chris Meyer, Indiana University.

IU-affiliated companies make up half of the nominees for the sought-after “Startup of the Year” award. They include:

  • Bereave of Indianapolis
  • Blue Agilis of Carmel
  • Membershine of Fishers
  • Relate XR of Indianapolis
  • rScan of South Bend

“The large number of Indiana University-affiliated nominees reflects IU’s forward-thinking approach to building a pervasive entrepreneurial ecosystem throughout our state and concerted focus on accelerating the development of high-potential innovations and startups,” said Jason Whitney, chief venture officer of IU Ventures and executive director of the IU Angel Network. “As IU’s entrepreneurial ecosystem continues to gain notice for the startups it has helped launch and build, it is also signaling that Indiana is a place where high-potential businesses can grow and thrive.”

Relate XR, which combines psychology with virtual reality technology to treat substance abuse disorders, also earned nominations for “Tech Innovation of the Year” and “BioCrossroads Life Sciences Innovation Team Award.”

The company’s founding team members, who have raised nearly $5 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health to support their invention, include co-founder Brandon Oberlin, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the IU School of Medicine with 20 years of experience in addictions research; IU Bloomington digital arts graduate Andrew Nelson, who owns Indianapolis-based gaming company Half Full Nelson; and Izzy Branam, of Zionsville, Indiana, an undergraduate student studying organizational and business psychology in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at IU Bloomington’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Branam, who serves as a community manager at IU Innovates, a university-wide initiative to support faculty and student entrepreneurs, scored a nomination for “Rising Entrepreneur of the Year.” He will compete for the honor against IU Kelley School of Business MBA graduate Rod Baradaran, CEO and co-founder (with Kelley MBA candidate Dmitry Brown) of South Bend’s rScan, and Aaron Pritz, a Kelley School alumnus who co-founded cybersecurity and risk management startup Reveal Risk of Carmel, which was nominated as “Innovation Service Partner of the Year.”

A member of the Kelley School’s MBA Class of 2024 in “Poets & Quants,” which honors the best and brightest MBA students, Baradaran was also nominated for “Emerging Tech Leader of the Year.” He is part of a team seeking to establish rScan, which won first prize in the 2003 Crossroad Collegiate Pitch Competition at The Mill in Bloomington, as one of the most efficient resale apps on the market, while continuing to expand its foothold in Indiana. Earlier this fall, the company announced the expansion of its South Bend headquarters, which will create 152 new positions and contribute to the city’s economic growth.

Rod Baradaran and Dmitry Brown, co-founders of rScan.
Rod Baradaran and Dmitry Brown, co-founders of rScan.

This year’s nominees also include three companies in the investment portfolio of IU Ventures, IU’s early-stage venture and angel investment arm.

They include Bereave, a startup dedicated to transforming how individuals navigate death. Bereave was co-founded by Matt Tyner and Pat Rogers, both IU alumni, and Elijah Linder and Keagan McGuire. IU Ventures recently contributed to Bereave’s pre-seed funding round through the IU Angel Network, one of its primary investment vehicles.

They also include Indianapolis-based Adipo Therapeutics and Amplified Sciences of West Lafayette, Ind., which will vie for the “BioCrossroads Life Sciences Innovation Team Award.”

Adipo Therapeutics is a late-stage, pre-clinical biopharmaceutical company seeking to use breakthrough technology to transform the treatment of Type 2 diabetes and obesity. It is led by company CEO Karen Wurster, a pharmaceutical executive with over 25 years of experience in developing and commercializing billion-dollar diabetes products and an IU Kelley School of Business alumna. IU Ventures contributed to the completion of Adipo’s $1.9 million bridge fund round.

Amplified Sciences, the first-ever company to receive a double investment from IU Ventures, is a clinical-stage life sciences diagnostic company focused on accurately detecting and pre-empting the risks of debilitating diseases like pancreatic cancer. The startup is built on the innovation of Dr. V. Jo Davisson, an IU School of Medicine biochemistry graduate and longtime biochemist at Purdue University. It was co-founded by CEO Diana Caldwell, CEO, an IU Kelley School of Business alumna.

Other IU-connected nominees include Mathtrack Institute (“Higher Education Innovation Award”), IU Indianapolis graduate Aaron Pierce (“Resilience Award”) of Pierce Aerospace (“Exceptional Employer of the Year”, “Rising Entrepreneur Award”), and Zylo (“Tech Innovation of the Year,” “Emerging Tech Leader of the Year”).

The winners will be announced during the Mira Awards gala at The Palladium in Carmel, Ind., on Feb. 27.

IU celebrates opening of The Forge, Bloomington’s new tech center

Posted on by Ryan Piurek

Indiana University helped lead an all-out celebration “blitz” on Friday, Nov. 22, at the grand opening of The Forge, Bloomington’s new $13 million sustainable technology center in the city’s downtown Trades District.

Even though IU’s football team suffered its first defeat the following day, Bloomington is still buzzing with excitement over two of its biggest stories of the year—the history-making, bowl-bound Hoosiers and the opening of the city’s new two-level, 22,000-square-foot, Class A office facility, which is expected to drive collaboration, creativity and entrepreneurship across the surrounding region. 

“For me, [The Forge] is the most exciting thing that’s happened this year in Bloomington—south of 17th Street,” said U.S. Sen. Todd Young, who sported a red IU cap at the grand opening in support of the gridiron Hoosiers, who have dominated opponents this year at 17th Street’s Memorial Stadium.

Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson, left, Indiana University President Pamela Whitten and U.S. Sen. Todd Young at the grand opening of The Forge in Bloomington’s downtown Trades District. Photo by James Brosher, Indiana University.

Young’s headwear also underscored a key theme of the celebration—campus and community partnership. Many of those who walked through the doors of The Forge for the first time on Friday also attended an August celebration at Bloomington’s business incubator, The Mill, where officials from IU, Bloomington and the Trades District celebrated IU’s $16 million College and Community Collaboration grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. Through the grant, which represents 20% of the total $80+ million investment in the Trades District, IU will provide talent, expertise and other resources to accelerate the development of the district into a thriving hub for innovation, economic development and community engagement.

As IU President Pamela Whitten outlined in her remarks, a portion of the grant will fund office buildouts for tenants in The Forge. IU is also leading a working group of IU staff and faculty experts to help recruit new businesses to Bloomington.

Additionally, in partnership with IU Innovates, IU’s new initiative that expands support for student and faculty business startups, the Trades District will create pathways for startups that may end up locating in The Forge. IU is already seeking to develop internships and networking opportunities for students with companies in the Trades District, an initiative that Whitten said The Forge will only enhance.

Whitten, Sen. Young, Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson, Senior Vice President of The Mill John Fernandez and Bloomington-based entrepreneur and IU alumnus Ravi Bhatt helmed the celebration, which highlighted the impact of The Forge on the development of a high-powered technology corridor between the 16 Tech Innovation District in Indianapolis and Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, in Odon, Ind. Whitten, who announced last year that IU would invest at least $111 million to advance its leadership in microelectronics and nanotechnology, said The Forge will help accelerate the growth of the tech corridor while also continuing Indiana’s momentum across key emerging industries.

“We fully expect that The Forge will become a key destination on the innovation corridor that runs from Indianapolis to NSWC Crane,” said Whitten, who wore her No 19 football jersey to the ceremony. (Whitten is IU’s 19th president.) “With Crane and the CHIPS and Science Act attracting more industries, the potential to help build Indiana’s economy of the future is enormous. With a multi-billion-dollar life sciences industry in Indianapolis … and a thriving microelectronics industry just an hour’s drive south along I-69, the possibilities for collaboration and innovation are limitless.”

Officials mark the opening of The Forge with a ribbon cutting during an event in Bloomington’s downtown Trades District. Pictured from left are: Indiana University President Pamela Whitten, The Mill Senior Vice President of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships John Fernandez, Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson, U.S. Sen. Todd Young, Folia Co-Founder and CEO Ravi Bhatt and The Mill Executive Director Pat East. Photo by James Brosher, Indiana University.

Heading into 2025, IU, the city and the Trades District will build on the milestone opening of The Forge by partnering in the development of connectivity and placemaking efforts. The $16 million Lilly Endowment grant will enable IU artists and arts administrators to support the development of new artwork and cultural programming in the Trades District, while also engaging faculty and students from across IU Bloomington’s schools and departments in various development projects.

“As we stand here today, we are reminded of the power of community and the impact of collective effort,” said Whitten. “The Forge is a testament to what we can achieve when we work together towards a common goal. This project goes beyond mere infrastructure. It’s about forging a future where Bloomington, Indiana, stands out as an undisputed leader in fostering innovation and opportunity.”

IU microelectronics innovation to help fuel formation of new $285M national semiconductor institute

Posted on by Ryan Piurek

Indiana University will play a key role in the formation of a first-of-its-kind national institute targeting the next frontier of technological innovation in the microelectronics industry.

IU is a member of the team that was selected this week by the National Institute for Standards and Technology to launch the new Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advanced Research with Twins USA (SMART USA) Institute. Led by the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) and poised to receive $285 million in federal funding, the SMART USA Institute will develop, validate and use virtual, computer-generated models, known as “digital twins,” to improve domestic semiconductor design, manufacturing, advanced packaging, assembly and test processes. It will also reduce the time and cost of chip design, create a more fertile climate for domestic chip production and provide training opportunities for the next generation of semiconductor workers.

IU Associate Professor Daniel Loveless in a group photo at NY CREATES, a world-leading innovation hub focused on semiconductor research and development.
Daniel Loveless, Indiana University associate professor and founding director of IU CREATE, attended a recent workshop at NY CREATES, a world-leading innovation hub focused on semiconductor research and development. IU is building its own integrated ecosystem to accelerate the development of next-generation microelectronics solutions and meet the evolving needs of modern industries.

IU is among 150 partner entities spanning 30 states and representing industry, government and academia that are participating in the SMART USA Institute, which was established through the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. The institute’s partners also include the EDGE Consortium, a national effort dedicated to making semiconductor-related education more accessible and aligned with industry workforce needs. IU President Pamela Whitten and Joanna Millunchick, dean of the IU Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, are among a select group of founding members of the EDGE Consortium, which Whitten also co-chairs.

The announcement about the SMART USA Institute comes as IU continues to move forward a series of major initiatives in microelectronics and nanotechnology—part of an unprecedented $111 million investment to strengthen IU’s and Indiana’s national leadership and impact in these areas. These include the IU Center for Reliable and Trusted Electronics, also known as IU CREATE, a university-wide center focused on research and development of high-reliability microelectronics with applications for the defense, automotive and commercial space sectors.

“Innovative modeling is essential to advancing microelectronics manufacturing,” said Daniel Loveless, founding director of IU CREATE and associate professor of intelligent systems engineering at IU’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering. “Digital twins play a pivotal role in bridging the gap between design and production, enabling faster and more accurate predictions. This program will align IU CREATE’s unique microelectronics test and validation capabilities with various resources across IU and the EDGE Consortium.

“IU is building an integrated ecosystem that accelerates the development and deployment of next-generation microelectronics solutions by fostering a collaborative environment with multiple departments and centers specializing in microelectronics, AI, digital twin technology, fabrication, education and workforce development. This ecosystem is essential to address the evolving needs of modern industries. As a member of the SMART USA Institute, IU will further strengthen these capabilities and forge strategic partnerships to meet the dynamic demands of the future.”

Recently, IU was awarded $4 million from the second round of Indiana’s Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative to acquire high-performance computing tools for microelectronics modeling and simulation and digital twins to support existing research and development related to radiation-hardened microelectronics and 2.5D and 3D heterogeneous integration.

The READI-funded equipment, which will be installed in Multidisciplinary Engineering and Sciences Hall at IU Bloomington, will shorten the chip development process by providing IU CREATE researchers with new ways to test chip design configurations and verify their reliability in harsh environments. It will also expand the suite of tools available for use by industry partners in radiation-hardened microelectronics and advanced packaging, two key technology areas for Indiana microelectronics companies in the region and state.

IU-developed training for advance care planning helps nursing home facilities honor patients’ wishes

Posted on by Bri Heron

Anyone could be faced with unexpected medical conditions, unable to communicate their health care decisions, so it is important to have plans in place ahead of time to ensure a patient’s wishes are being honored—particularly in a nursing home setting.

With the online training they developed specifically for nursing home staff, Susan Hickman and her Indiana University School of Medicine colleague Kathleen Unroe are providing foundational information regarding advance care planning. This involves discussing a patient’s values, goals and treatment preferences for medical care to prepare them for future communication and decision-making.

IU School of Medicine Professors Susan Hickman and Kathleen Unroe at a table smiling with colleagues.
IU School of Medicine Professors Susan Hickman and Kathleen Unroe, third and fourth from left, have developed online training specifically for nursing home staff to help them ensure that patients’ treatment preferences are being honored. Photo courtesy of the Regenstrief Institute.

Designed in collaboration with nursing home partners, the training has a specific focus on working with patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other related dementias and their family caregivers, who are often asked to make important care decisions. The training has been used by hundreds of nursing home staff around the country to support nearly 6,000 conversations with residents and their family members.

“Advance care planning not only reduces family caregiver stress but improves patient satisfaction,” said Hickman, a Cornelius and Yvonne Pettinga Professor of Medicine at the IU School of Medicine and director of the Center for Aging Research at the Regenstrief Institute. “However, there are minimal training resources available that are specifically for nursing home staff. The result is that these important conversations tend to be overlooked or approached in a problematic way that can be detrimental for the patient.”

The online training provides information on advance care planning, decisional capacity and supporting informed decision-making, along with tools to help staff engage in these conversations with residents and families.

Hickman, whose research focuses on optimizing the quality of life for older adults by improving communication and decision-making to honor a patient’s treatment preferences, emphasized the importance of proactively having these conversations, particularly in instances when a patient is unable to speak for themselves.

“Failing to proactively discuss preferences and goals can result in burdensome hospitalizations and result in decisions that do not reflect the patient’s treatment goals or preferences, especially during times of crisis when fast decisions-making is required,” Hickman said.

The training includes a facilitation guide with standardized questions to help nursing home staff approach the topic with sensitivity and clarity. Organizational documentation tools are also provided, including a tracking sheet and an example workflow overview to refine and improve advance care planning practices.

“There was a critical need for sustainable training for these facilities,” Hickman said. “We created these resources so that nursing home administrators do not have to reinvent the wheel every time they hire someone new.”

In addition to advance care planning, Hickman also works on POLST: Portable Medical Orders, a medical form used across the country to document treatment preferences for resuscitation and medical interventions as actionable medical orders that emergency medical services can follow. According to Hickman, the form is crucial as it improves the continuity of care for patients and allows for their treatment preferences to be respected.

Hickman has partnered with the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office to further her research.

IU researcher attends White House event on saving lives from opioid overdose

Posted on by Ryan Piurek

Attendees of the White House Challenge to Save Lives from Overdose event.
Indiana University researcher Cris Henderson (pictured third from right in the second row) was recognized at a recent White House Challenge to Save Lives from Overdose event as a leader in the effort to prevent deaths from opioid overdoses. Photo by Fred Dubon.

After participating in a special event at the White House this week, Indiana University researcher Cris Henderson is confident that IU’s leadership in helping to prevent opioid overdoses is moving Indiana and the nation in the right direction.  

Henderson is a research associate for Prevention Insights and a doctoral student at the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington in the Department of Applied Health Science. They are also project director of the Citizen Opioid Responders (COR) Program, an IU online naloxone training program that seeks to reduce deaths from opioid overdoses by recruiting, training and linking citizen responders to these events so they can administer medications used to reverse opioid overdoses, such as naloxone, also known as Narcan. This year, Henderson and their research team received the Affinity Giving Award from the IU Foundation to implement the COR program across multiple IU campuses and Indiana counties.  

At the White House Challenge to Save Lives from Overdose event, Henderson joined leaders from across business, education, entertainment, government, hospitality and other industries who were recognized for their commitment to increase training on—and access to—life-saving opioid overdose reversal medications.  

“Going to the White House and receiving the affinity award really illustrated the importance of everyone working together to solve this problem,” Henderson said. “It reinforced for me that we are on the right track, but we need to keep continuing in our effort to solve this problem.  

“We need to continue increasing access to overdose education programs like the Citizen Opioid Responders program and continue to identify ways to facilitate low-barrier access to Narcan, including free or reduced cost options, so that more people in our communities get trained and carry this life-saving medication. These efforts can help normalize the use of Narcan, help destigmatize the subject of substance use disorder and more importantly, help save lives.” 

Event participants shared successes and challenges related to combating opioid overdose, including expanding access to and increasing training on how to administer naloxone, helping to destigmatize treatment for opioid use disorder, and recognizing opioid use disorder as a disease. They also discussed the importance of bringing together organizations at the local, state and national levels to ensure communities have the proper level of education, online and in-person training programs, data insights and other resources to effectively respond to overdose situations.  

The opioid epidemic continues to devastate communities throughout the U.S., especially in Indiana. In 2023, more than 1,500 Hoosiers died from an opioid overdose according to the Indiana Drug Overdose Dashboard.  

Henderson’s visit to the White House was the latest in a recent series of events that have brought national attention to IU’s leadership in addressing the opioid crisis. In fall 2023, Henderson and their colleague Jon Agley, an associate professor at the School of Public Health-Bloomington and director of research at Prevention Insights, received a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to test a novel approach to increasing overdose education and readiness to use naloxone nationally. Other IU researchers have also received major grants from the National Institutes of Health in recent months to transform adolescent opioid use disorder care in Indiana, analyze adverse outcomes associated with long-term opioid therapy dose tapering and discontinuation, and provide more timely reporting of data to inform local policies, procedures and interventions to prevent overdoses.  

As part of their work with IU’s COR program, Henderson has developed a naloxone training program to effectively prepare laypeople to respond to opioid overdoses and administer naloxone (Narcan). The online, 30-minute course targets rural communities, including those with geographic footprints that can increase emergency response times. This program is currently being used by at least one county health department in Indiana to increase community readiness, and with help from the IU Foundation’s affinity grant will soon expand to at least 5 IU campuses and 3 additional counties.  

“Everything presented today really reinforced for me that this is the work we are already doing in Indiana,” Henderson said. “Across all the COR projects I oversee, we intentionally seek to collaborate and partner with different sectors and community partners in those communities, like law enforcement and other first responder groups, local health departments, state government, health systems, treatment and mental health providers, pharmaceutical companies and even chambers of commerce, as well as other industries. This is all in the effort to increase awareness and increase the number of people trained and carrying Narcan in our communities who feel ready, willing and able to administer the medication.”  

IU researcher develops new nanoparticle to help combat drug-resistant infections

Posted on by Bri Heron

Antimicrobial resistance has become a major global public health emergency that accounts for 2.8 million infections per year according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Despite new and existing antibiotics on the market, the antimicrobial resistance is outpacing the development, making the need for new antimicrobial treatments a growing priority.

Head shot of Professor Yan Yu
Indiana University chemist Yan Yu has developed a new nanoparticle that could serve as a promising solution in the fight against drug-resistant infections.

Yan Yu, a professor at the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Chemistry, has developed an antibacterial Janus nanoparticle that is 10 to 30 times more effective at killing bacteria than other nanoparticles. Nanoparticles are so small that they are undetectable by the human eye, ranging between 1 to 100 nanometers in size. The nanoparticle provides an alternative antibacterial material compared to traditional antimicrobial nanoparticles and has high potency with little dosage.

Recently, nanoparticles have been used to treat antibiotic-resistant bacteria, as their properties have been found to overcome antimicrobial resistance mechanisms. Yu said that unlike conventional antibiotics, which often target specific bacterial proteins or processes, nanoparticles can disrupt bacterial cells through a combination of multiple mechanisms, such as generating reactive oxygen species or physically damaging cell membranes. This reduces the likelihood of bacteria developing resistance. Additionally, nanoparticles can be engineered to target specific pathogens, minimizing harm to beneficial microbes and reducing side effects. Their versatility makes them a promising solution in the fight against drug-resistant infections.

“Our nanoparticle is more effective in killing bacteria because its surface chemistry is vastly different as it’s made with distinct surface coatings on two sides,” Yu said. “One hemisphere is designed to attract the particle to the bacterial surface, while the other is specialized for rupturing the bacterial membrane. This dual functionality delivers a powerful one-two punch, enhancing its antibacterial effectiveness.”

Yu’s research was featured in American Chemical Society’s Applied Nano Materials which further details the antibacterial properties of the Janus nanoparticles. Yu’s lab merges nanoparticles and immune cell studies for the development of nanoparticles that detect infectious diseases and modulate immune responses for antibacterial applications.

Yu plans to further test the efficacy of the Janus nanoparticles against multi-drug resistant hospital strains with researchers at Osaka University. She has partnered with the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office to further her research. In addition, she has been awarded two patents for her invention of “Bull’s Eye” Janus particles that activate T cells in vitro for immune therapy and a patent for her invention of multi-channel nanoparticle sensors that detect abnormal immune functions in infectious diseases. She is seeking an industry partner to help commercialize her research.

IU faculty startup MBX Biosciences announces $163.2 million U.S. IPO

Posted on by Bri Heron and Ryan Piurek

MBX Biosciences, an Indiana University faculty-created startup that develops peptide therapies for the treatment of endocrine and metabolic diseases, raised $163.2 million in its U.S. initial public offering.

The company’s peptides are based on chemistry developed by a research team led by Richard DiMarchi, scientific cofounder of MBX Biosciences and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences and Linda and Jack Gill Chair at the Gill Institute for Biomolecular Sciences at IU Bloomington.

A group photo of the team at MBX Biosciences in front of a table with the logos of Nasdaq and MBX.
IU faculty startup MBX Biosciences aims to transform native peptides to innovative therapeutics to improve clinical outcomes and help individuals with endocrine and metabolic diseases, such as hypoparathyroidism and obesity, live healthier lives. Photograph courtesy of Nasdaq Inc.

MBX Biosciences, which is headquartered in Carmel, Ind., aims to transform native peptides to innovative therapeutics to improve clinical outcomes and help individuals with endocrine and metabolic diseases, such as hypoparathyroidism and obesity, live healthier lives. The company plans to advance a pipeline of peptide hormone analogs with drug candidates such as MBX 2109, a treatment for chronic hypoparathyroidism, and MBX 4291, an obesity treatment. By taking MBX Biosciences public, the company can further its goal of transforming treatments for endocrine and metabolic diseases through the creation of safe and effective therapeutics.

“Our recent successful IPO marks a significant milestone in our journey to develop innovative new therapies leveraging our Precision Endocrine Peptide™, or PEP™ platform,” said Kent Hawryluk, president and CEO of MBX Biosciences. “This achievement reflects our team’s dedication, as well as strong support from our investors. I am optimistic about MBX’s future and excited to continue advancing our clinical stage and discovery programs forward to improve clinical outcomes and simplify disease management for patients.”

DiMarchi founded the company alongside Hawryluk, an IU alumnus, in 2019. It is the eighth biotechnology startup co-founded by DiMarchi and the sixth to successfully transition from venture funding to the next stage of commercialization.

IU Ventures, IU’s early-stage venture and angel investment arm, is one of several leading life sciences investors that financially supported the launch of MBX Biosciences. It has invested nearly $2 million in MBX Biosciences through the IU Philanthropic Venture Fund to support the company’s discovery and development of novel therapeutics to address unmet medical needs.

Before coming to IU, DiMarchi had a 20-year long career at Eli Lilly and Company where he led diabetes research. In 2003, he joined IU Bloomington’s chemistry faculty as a Gill Chair, continuing his work in chemistry and pharmacology. DiMarchi is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Inventors Hall of Fame, a co-inventor of more than 100 U.S. patents and co-author of more than 250 scientific papers.

In April, DiMarchi was honored with the 2024 Mani L. Bhaumik Breakthrough of the Year Award for his groundbreaking research on transforming obesity treatments. He was also recognized as an Indiana 250 Honoree in the Health and Life Sciences from the Indiana Business Journal.

DiMarchi said that the company’s focus is treating endocrine diseases. The most advanced drug candidate is a peptide directed at once weekly treatment of hypoparathyroidism. The active ingredient has been chemically optimized through proprietary prodrug chemistry to extend the duration of action and flatten the pharmacokinetic profile to increase its therapeutic index, providing enhanced efficacy and safety.

“MBX Biosciences is a company co-founded five years ago by Kent Hawryluk, Tim Knickerbocker and me,” DiMarchi said. “Its technical foundation is the precision peptide chemistry as applied to therapeutic drug candidates that my IU laboratory has pioneered. The nature of this research has been a consistent interest of my professional endeavors that now extends over two decades at Indiana University and was preceded by two decades at Lilly Research laboratories.”