Professor Venture Fair

The Professor Venture Fair began at Bioscience Day 2007 and has become an annual event that gives faculty inventors the opportunity to pitch their new technologies to a team of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs from the region. Presenters are judged based upon clarity of pitch and commercial viability.

Previous Winners

2011: Professor Lyle Isaacs' group (Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry) in collaboration with Professor Volker Briken's group (Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics) won the Professor Venture Fair for best invention for their creation of "Molecular Containers that Solubilize and Deliver Insoluble Pharmaceutical Agents." Dr. Isaacs' invention was chosen as the top from the six inventions selected by the University's Office of Technology Commercialization to compete in Bioscience Day 2011.Read about the winning invention.

2010: Iqbal Hamza, Associate Professor in the department of Animal and Avian Sciences, won the Best Inventor Pitch at the 2010 Bioscience Research and Technology Review Day with a screening technique that allows doctors and veterinarians to screen hosts for multiple parasitic targets simultaneously. Read the news release: Hamza's Innovative Molecular Approach to Target Parasitic Infections Wins Professor Venture Fair.

2009: Associate Professor of Bioengineering John Fisher won with a tissue engineering bioreactor system that grows bone and other types of tissue for implantation. Read the news release: Bioreactor for Bone Tissue Engineering Wins Professor Venture Fair. Watch a video about this new technology, Tech: Engineering Tissue on Discovery News

2008: Fischell Department of Bioengineering doctoral student Matthew Dowling and chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Srinivasa Raghavan won for “nano-velcro,” a new, patent-pending bio-material capable of stopping bleeding, particularly in situations where surgical help is not immediately available. Matt Dowling, had already started Remedium Technologies in 2007, and the company, now in the Mtech VentureAccelerator Program, continues to develop its Velcro-like biomaterial bandages. Read the news release: Bio-bandage that Stops Bleeding Wins Professor Venture Fair

2007: Lawrence Sita, professer of chemistry and biochemistry, won for inventing a technology that can create an infinite variety of safe, pure plastics. He started Precision Polyolefins, acompany that could revolutionize the plastics industry by introducing a clean alternative to existing methods of plastics production. Read the news release: Revolutionary Plastics Prove Perfect Pitch

Bioscience Day 2012 Venture Fair

2012 Winner

Silvia Muro and Rasa Ghaffarian Silvia Muro, associate professor of bioengineering, and Rasa Ghaffarian, bioengineering graduate student, won the 2012 Professor Venture Fair for a novel drug delivery strategy that uses targeted carriers capable of crossing the gastrointestinal (GI) tract into the circulation.

Presenters and Judges

PRESENTERS (with link to technology summary)

Dr. EVA R. CHIN, Assistant Professor
Department of Kinesiology

Dr. VINCENT T. LEE,Assistant Professor,
Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics

Dr. DONALD K. MILTON,Professor and Director, Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health, University of Maryland School of Public Health

Dr. SILVIA MURO, Associate Professor,
Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research
and Fischell Dept. of Bioengineering

Dr. KATAYOON SAADIN, Research Affiliate, and Dr. IAN WHITE, Assistant Professor, Fischell Department of Bioengineering

Click here for details about the presenters.

JUDGES

Martha Connolly

Herbert (Herb) Heyneker

Charles Montague

Linda Saffer

Jeff Schreier

Sponsored by the university's Office of Technology Commercialization, the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, and the A James Clark School of Engineering's Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (MTECH).