On April 27, representatives from Tokyo-based Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co. Ltd., known as Kirin, which licenses intellectual property discovered at the IU School of Medicine, met with the researchers and representatives of the IU Research and Technology Corp.

Jun Arakawa and Yoshihiro Furuya, managers at the company, provided an update about its business and the progress made on commercializing the intellectual property with Marie Kerbeshian, David Wilhite and Rebecca Lyon of IURTC.

The group met with Dr. Michael J. Econs and Kenneth E. White, the IU School of Medicine researchers who discovered the innovation and disclosed it to IURTC. Econs is the Glenn W. Irwin Jr. Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism, and White is the David D. Weaver Professor of Genetics. Econs and White talked about the history of the science and future directions of how it could practically be applied.

The visit concluded with further discussion about commercializing the intellectual property during lunch at The Oceanaire Seafood Room in downtown Indianapolis.

Wilhite said IURTC has established an ongoing relationship with Kirin over several years.

“The license with Kirin was originally executed in September 2002, so the relationship has lasted more than 14 years,” he said. “When you’re conducting business for that length of time, no one can predict the changes that might occur. Because of the strong relationship between IURTC and Kirin, we have been able to discuss how the original license might evolve to make it an even stronger agreement for both parties. This is the kind of relationship we hope to have with all companies that license intellectual property from IURTC, whether they are located in Japan or a few blocks away in downtown Indianapolis.”

For the third year in a row, the Bloomington Innovation Conference connected Indiana University Bloomington researchers and industry officials from the region. The conference, organized by the Johnson Center for Innovation and Translational Research, included presentations from external speakers and IU Bloomington faculty who received JCITR Translational Research Pilot Grant Awards.

Keith R. Davis, director of the Johnson Center, said the conference has continued to grow since its 2015 inception.

“We are pleased that the attendance doubled at the 2017 conference compared to our initial conference in 2015,” he said. “Since the 2016 conference, the number of poster presentations doubled and included researchers from a variety of disciplines that represent the diversity of research being conducted at IU Bloomington. We also added two demonstration stations and information tables from three other organizations: University Industry Demonstration Partnership (UIDP), IU Research and Technology Corporation (IURTC), Center for Survey Research, and Places and Spaces: Mapping Science Exhibit from Scimaps.org. The growth has been tremendous.”

The conference included informational presentations on topics like interacting with angel investors, developing proposals for Small Business Innovation Research grants, and launching startup companies; a poster session that provided networking opportunities for faculty, post-doctorates and students from IU Bloomington; and research presentations from both IU Bloomington faculty and industry researchers.

Nick Nikolaides — executive director, University of Cincinnati Skin Science & Technology Collaborative, and entrepreneur in residence, University of Cincinnati — was keynote speaker at the conference.

“The Bloomington Innovation Conference is an outstanding example of how institutes of higher education can more genuinely connect with industry. As they learn even more about one another, stronger bonds are made that can benefit collaborations for researchers and students, leading to co-creation of basic and applied science opportunities,” he said. “Recognizing these connections and strengthening them, via co-creation, will have short-term and long-term impact on Indiana University Bloomington researchers as more of their innovations are developed for the market.”

Speakers at this year’s conference were:

• Davis
• Nikolaides
• Fred Cate, IU vice president for research
• Cheng Kao, professor, molecular and cellular biochemistry
• Hannah Block, assistant professor, kinesiology
• David Landy, assistant professor, psychological and brain sciences
• Erik Weitnauer, research associate, psychological and brain sciences
• Richard Hardy, professor, biology
• Matt Anderson, principal software research engineer, Center for Research in Extreme Scale Technologies
• Katy Borner, distinguished professor, intelligent systems engineering and information and library science
• Lee Arnold, entrepreneur in residence, Johnson Center for Innovation and Translational Research
• Joshua Danish, associate professor, education
• Mike Wade, distinguished professor, biology
• Jorge Jose, distinguished professor, physics
• Fil Menczer, professor, Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research
• Oscar Moralez, founder and managing director, VisionTech

Bill Brizzard, director of technology commercialization at IU Research and Technology Corp., recognized several IU researchers whose work resulted in 17 patents during the 2016-17 fiscal year.

JCITR will announce recipients of the next round of Translational Research Pilot Grant Awards in June.

With the rise of the online text, e-readers and tablets, there has been a revolution in how people consume written information. The way most people write math, however, hasn’t changed in centuries.

It was this realization that inspired Indiana University’s David Landy to create Graspable Math — software that allows users to “touch” and manipulate numbers on a screen. The result is a system that lets students learn mathematical concepts by “playing” with numbers — opening the door to grasping concepts before mastering rules of notation.

More information about Graspable Math, the IU researchers who created and developed it, and how it’s being used around the country is available online.

Indiana University Research and Technology Corp. has offered the researchers a software license agreement to help commercialize the technology.

Two high-tech companies founded by Indiana University researchers and alumni were recognized as the best in the state during the TechPoint Mira Awards event on April 29.

Arrhythmotech, based on research by Dr. Peng-Sheng Chen of the Indiana University School of Medicine, was named Innovation of the Year. DoubleMap, founded by IU alumni Ilya Rekhter, Eric Jiang and Peter SerVaas, received the Scale-up Company of the Year award.

Arrhythmotech’s patent-pending technology platform is able to detect sympathetic nerve signaling noninvasively on the skin with greater accuracy than traditional methods. Its platform is the only product capable of detecting a digital biomarker that will have an impact on the health care, clinical research and wearable-technology markets.

The practical applications could be adopted for clinical indications such as chronic and acute pain, epilepsy, sleep apnea, high blood pressure, sudden cardiac death, atrial fibrillation, and others. Arrhythmotech is also exploring wearable and consumer applications such as stress detection, human performance, fraud detection, anxiety, fatigue and mindfulness.

Joe Trebley, CEO of Monon Bioventures and CEO of Arrhythmotech, said the company is finishing the beta version of its device.

“The next step is to get it into the hands of key opinion leaders so they can validate the remarkable data we’ve seen thus far in cardiology and other spaces,” he said. “The really exciting part is that the killer application for this technology could very likely be something we haven’t even thought of yet.”

Trebley noted the impact federal grants have had on the company.

“We are very fortunate to have partners like the National Institutes of Health that have supported so much of our early work through research and small-business grants,” he said. “These grants are often the foundation of many high-tech small businesses around the nation.”

Trebley said winning the Mira Award for Innovation of the Year is an excellent recognition for the Arrhythmotech team and the IU School of Medicine.

“We will build off of this momentum and demonstrate that some of the best innovation is in our own backyard here in Indianapolis,” he said.

DoubleMap provides transit software for universities, municipalities, corporations and airports worldwide. The company’s products, such as mobile apps for catching the bus and automated voice annunciation for visually impaired riders, have proven to be key differentiators and have allowed DoubleMap to experience exponential year-over-year growth.

DoubleMap’s new on-demand product, TapRide, helped attract more than 40 new clients by itself, including a well-known footwear company that used it to create an internal Uber. DoubleMap ranked as the 93rd fastest-growing company nationwide on Inc. Magazine’s 5000 list, while also being the 12th fastest-growing company in Indiana on the Indianapolis Business Journal’s Fast 25 list.

“Winning a Mira Award is special because the TechPoint judges incorporate multiple factors into selecting a winner,” Ilya Rekhter said. “DoubleMap has been able to take its rapid growth and build itself into a scale-up company as a direct result of our company culture and a motivated team of individuals. We believe that our team is well-positioned to sustain our growth moving forward as DoubleMap and TapRide mature into market-leading products.”

Indiana University President Michael A. McRobbie has announced that IU will invest $55 million to help Indiana develop actionable solutions that prepare businesses, farmers, communities and individual Hoosiers for the effects of ongoing environmental change. The initiative — Prepared for Environmental Change — is the second project funded through IU’s $300 million Grand Challenges Program, which launched in 2015.

Indiana is already experiencing heavier spring flooding and hotter, drier summers, and the pace of change is expected to increase. The visible effects of changes in weather patterns also give rise to less obvious environmental changes that include altered growing seasons and migratory patterns, soil loss, and rapidly spreading diseases like Lyme disease, Zika virus and West Nile virus. Together, these complex changes threaten agricultural production, infrastructure stability, public health, and the diversity of plant and animal life.

The initiative will create an Environmental Resilience Institute to better predict the impact of these threats and facilitate collaboration between IU’s world-class faculty and Indiana residents, businesses, nonprofits and the public sector. Some of the partners include Cummins Inc., Citizens Energy Group, the Nature Conservancy and government officials from across Indiana. As soon as this summer, researchers will begin putting in place the infrastructure to collect data about the challenges Indiana faces from environmental change and to organize research activities to address them.

“Environmental change has been a constant through history,” McRobbie said. “Areas that were once fertile are now deserts. Areas that were once covered in huge glaciers are now home to major farming activity. Our state is not immune to changing environmental conditions, and these may cause major changes for some of the state’s most valuable assets and industries.

“The size and scope of these changes demand extensive collaboration between key public- and private-sector stakeholders. Great research universities like IU are uniquely positioned to help lead these partnerships and provide the intellectual talent, resources and expertise to develop and implement innovative and high-impact solutions to the most pressing needs of our local communities, our state and our world in the face of environmental change.”

More information about the Environmental Resilience Institute, the Grand Challenges Program and what will be done by IU researchers — led by internationally acclaimed scientist Ellen Ketterson, IU Distinguished Professor of Biology —  is available online.

Congratulations to FAST BioMedical, a life sciences company that licenses research from the Indiana University School of Medicine. The company announced that is has received $8 million in funding to advance clinical trials of the company’s technology as well as to hire additional talent and advance the company’s global patent portfolio.

A news release is available on the company’s website. Its license comes from Indiana University Research and Technology Corp.

Bruce A. Molitoris, distinguished professor in the Department of Medicine, is the company’s medical director and founder. More information about him, his research and his opinions on translating research from the bench to commercial products and processes is online.

The Innovation in BLOOMington e-newsletter from Innovate Indiana is now available.

Read more about the research, innovation and economic development at Indiana Univeristy-Bloomington online.

Scientists at Indiana University have identified a therapy that could help reverse damage from acute kidney injury and eliminate the need for dialysis treatment in the future.

Acute kidney injury commonly occurs after either cardiac surgery or prolonged vascular surgery procedures, said lead researcher Dr. Robert L. Bacallao, associate professor of medicine at IU School of Medicine. It can also occur with blood loss from trauma, so it’s a frequent problem for the military.

“It’s almost like a classic cable-TV problem,” he said. “If you have a good cable running through your neighborhood, but then the last 10 feet going to your house doesn’t work, as far as you’re concerned, you have bad cable. That’s what we’re seeing in acute kidney injury: It’s that last little bit that seems to be affected, and this procedure repairs that.”

Bacallao is co-founder and chief scientific officer of Rene Medical, which was formed to commercialize the research just published. The company licensed it from the Indiana University Research and Technology Corp. and is a member of IURTC’s Spin Up entrepreneurial program.

“We have raised $100,000 in funding and have conducted a successful proof-of-concept study in a large animal model,” Bacallao said. “Our next steps include another large animal study refining our first-generation catheter and creating a proprietary device to perform the procedure reproducibly and safely.”

More information about the research and its commercialization is available online.

Tony Armstrong, president and CEO of the Indiana University Research and Technology Corp., will participate in a panel discussion of industry experts about the life sciences Friday, April 28, in downtown Indianapolis.

The Indianapolis Business Journal is hosting the Power Breakfast Series – Life Sciences event at the Marriott Indianapolis, 350 W. Maryland St. Registration begins at 7:30 a.m., and the breakfast and discussion begin at 8 a.m.

Among topics to be discussed are:

• Making funding more available for life sciences startups.
• 2017 trends in the life sciences sector.
• New developments with the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute.

Other scheduled panelists are Bill Knerr, Ernst & Young; Jan Lundberg, Lilly Research Laboratories; Anne Ruff, Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman; Derek Small, Assembly Biosciences; and Joe Trebley, Monon Bioventures.

The event is open to the public. Tickets are available online. IBJ subscribers receive a 20 percent discount.

Subjects including quality of place, the advantages millennials bring to the workplace, what graduates care about when researching employers and others were discussed by panelists during the third annual Education-to-Employment Convergence April 20 in Indianapolis.

The Education-to-Employment Convergence is a statewide forum focused on ensuring a smooth education-to-employment transition for Indiana college students. At the lunchtime forum hosted at the IUPUI Campus Center, representatives from higher education, state government, workforce development and various industries learned, networked and shared best practices for producing more career-ready talent in Indiana.

The event had more than 120 attendees from around the state, including leaders in the educational and industrial sectors. Jason Kloth of Ascend Indiana gave the keynote address. Panelists were Kloth; Liz Dunlap, IU Health; Jill Lehman, Ontario Systems; Jeff Rea, South Bend Regional Chamber; and Bill Stephan, Indiana University. The panel discussion was moderated by Naomi Pescovitz of WTHR.