With the help of a grant from the Texas Ignition Fund, UT researchers hope to expand a new technology with the potential to save thousands of people who experience cardiac- and stroke-related ailments.
The technology induces a state of mild hypothermia for patients suffering from diminished blood flow to the brain without invasive procedures or use of pharmacological intervention. It could prove helpful for people who have suffered a traumatic brain injury, stroke or cardiac arrest and at a relatively low cost.
“We would bring a device to market that could be used to combat effects of oxygen starvation to the brain and reduce death,” said Kenneth Diller, chairman of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UT.
Diller spearheaded the project with the help of biomedical engineering senior Daniel Hensley. The project will receive $48,000 from the fund.
“It’s great,” Hensley said. “Funding is always necessary and helpful, and the money will help with the experiments necessary to advance our product.”
The project was one of nine technologies developed at UT System institutions that received Texas Ignition Fund grants totaling $453,000.
The UT System Board of Regents approved the one-time $2 million fund in 2007 with the purpose of awarding grants for new technological discoveries deemed worthy of moving from the laboratory into the commercial marketplace, said Matt Flores, Office of Research and Technology Transfer spokesman.
“The [fund] continues to generate quality proposals in a broad range of disciplines from UT System health and academic institutions all over Texas,” said Cathy Swain, UT assistant vice chancellor for commercial development. “Start-up companies already derived from this program so early in its history are merely a preview of potential commercial opportunities. This fall, we will be actively pursuing funding to perpetuate this important funding.”
Researchers have to go through an application process in order to receive a grant from the fund. The application then goes to the Office of Research and Technology Transfer and the Ignition Fund Advisory Board, which decides what projects have the best potential for commercialization.
“The process for each project is unique,” Flores said. “Yet, the commercialization process is a cumbersome one.”
Flores said the fund is a pilot program to test the ability for success of these new technologies.
“We want to see how the program works and see how successful the project can be,” he said.
The research and technology office and the fund advisory board have approved $1.6 million for 29 proposals from 11 UT System institutions.
Another project that received grant money was a micro-reactor from UT Arlington which converts natural gas to gasoline, diesel and jet fuel that may help produce clean, sulfur-free fuel at a low cost. The project is conducted by a research team headed by Brian Dennis, an assistant mechanical and aerospace engineering professor; John Priest, a professor of Industrial and manufacturing systems engineering and Richard Billo, associate dean of research at UT Arlington.
Dennis said the funds will be used to help with research to adapt this technology to applications involving natural gas conversion.
“It’s nice that we can get some support to do research,” he said. “This is definitely research that can benefit the Dallas-Fort Worth area and Texas as a whole.”
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