Translational Therapeutics Accelerator Pilot Awardees

The Translational Therapeutics Accelerator (TRx) Pilot Award provides investigators with the resources to position their therapeutic discoveries for future commercial value. Awardees are expected to reach a value inflection point in their research.

2022-2023 TRx Pilot Awardees

Preventing Genetic Abnormalities to Improve ART/IVF

  • Dieter Egli, PhD, Pediatrics - Molecular Genetics (Principal Investigator)
  • Zev Williams, MD, PhD, Obstetrics and Gynecology (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Stepan Jerabek, PhD, Pediatrics - Molecular Genetics

Corvyv: Keeping Heart Cells Alive Through a Heart Attack

  • Barry Fine, MD, PhD, Medicine – Cardiology (Principal Investigator)
  • Donald Landry, MD, PhD, Medicine (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Shi-Xian Deng, PhD, Medicine – Organic Chemistry Collaborative Center
  • Alison Rinderspacher, PhD, Medicine – Organic Chemistry Collaborative Center
  • Diogo Teles, MD, PhD, Biomedical Engineering
  • Bryan Wang, PhD, Biomedical Engineering
  • Xiaokan Zhang, PhD, Medicine – Cardiology

Cell Therapy for Lung Diseases

  • Hans-Willem Snoeck, Medicine – Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care (Principal Investigator)
  • N. Valerio Dorrello, Pediatrics – Critical Care (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Hsiao-Yun (Mavis) Liu, PhD, Medicine
  • Camilla Predella, PhD, Pediatrics – Critical Care

ProteoClear: Combatting Neurodegenerative Disease

  • Ai Yamamoto, PhD, Neurology – Movement Disorders (Principal Investigator)
  • Katherine Croce, PhD, Neurology

2021-2022 TRx Pilot Awardees

Bain Syndrome: A Gene Targeted Approach for HNRNPH2-Related Neurodevelopmental Disorder 

  • Jennifer Bain, MD, PhD, Neurology – Child Neurology (Principal Investigator) 
  • Christopher Ricupero, PhD, Center for Dental & Craniofacial Research, College of Dental Medicine (Co-Principal Investigator)  
  • Barbara Corneo, PhD, Rehabilitation & Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Core, Columbia Stem Cell Initiative 
  • Achchhe Patel, PhD, Rehabilitation & Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Core, Columbia Stem Cell Initiative 

Bio-Microbur for Oral Delivery of Biologics 

  • Kam Leong, PhD, Biomedical Engineering (Principal Investigator) 
  • Suwan Ding, MS, Biomedical Engineering 
  • Kara Gross Margolis, MD, New York University Pain Research Center 
  • Letao Yang, PhD, Biomedical Engineering  
  • Yuefei Zhu, MS, Biomedical Engineering 

Calcardia – Precision Treatment for Heart Failure 

  • Steven Marx, MD, Medicine - Cardiology (Principal Investigator) 
  • Manu Ben-Johny, PhD, Physiology and Cellular Biophysics (Co-Principal Investigator) 
  • Alexander Kushnir, MD, PhD, Medicine - Cardiology, New York University Langone School of Medicine 
  • Guoxia Liu, PhD, Medicine - Cardiology 
  • Lin Yang, MD, Medicine - Cardiology 

Prime Editing: Novel CRISPR-based Therapy for CRB1-Linked Inherited Retinal Dystrophies 

  • Stephen H. Tsang, MD, PhD, Ophthalmology (Principal Investigator) 
  • Peter M.J. Quinn, PhD, Ophthalmology (Co-Principal Investigator) 
  • Bruna Lopes da Costa, MSc, Biomedical Engineering 
  • Salvatore Marco Caruso, MS, Biomedical Engineering 

 

 

2020-2021 TRx Pilot Awardees

Pro-CARs Probiotic-guided CAR-T cells for universal solid tumor targeting

  • Tal Danino, PhD, Biomedical Engineering (Principal Investigator)
  • Nicholas Arpaia, PhD, Microbiology and Immunology (Co-Principal Investigator)

A Circuit-Based Approach to Pharmacologic Treatment of Neurodevelopmental Disorders

  • Alex Dranovsky, PhD, Psychiatry (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Amy Margolis, PhD, Psychiatry-Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (Co-Principal Investigator)

Development of enhanced CAR T regs for targeted induction of immune tolerance in transplantation and autoimmunity

  • Mohsen Khosravi Maharlooei, MD, MSc, Medicine-Immunology (Principal Investigator)
  • Megan Sykes, MD, Medicine-Hematology and Oncology (Co-Principal Investigator)

Leveraging Single-Cell Technologies with Advanced Machine Learning and Gene Network-Based Predictive Algorithms to Identify Novel Targets Driving Radiation Therapy Resistance

  • Catherine Spina, MD, Radiation Oncology (Principal Investigator)
  • Andrea Califano, Dr., Systems Biology (Co-Principal Investigator)

CultivageBIO: Vaginal Probiotic Cocktail

  • Harris Wang, PhD, Systems Biology (Principal Investigator)
  • Mary Rosser, MD, PhD, Obstetrics and Gynecology (Co-Principal Investigator)

SARS-CoV-2 Envelope as a New Therapeutic Target for COVID-19

  • Masayuki Yazawa, PhD, Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine (Principal Investigator)
  • David Ho, PhD, Microbiology & Immunology (Co-Principal Investigator)

2020 TRx COVID-19 Pilot Awardees

Development of Cidofiovir Prodrugs as Potential Orally Available Medication for COVID-19

  • Jingyue Ju, PhD, Chemical Engineering

Rapid Development of SARS-CoV-2 3CL Protease Inhibitors for treatment of COVID-19

  • Brent Stockwell, PhD, Biological Sciences

Adoptive Transfer of Coronavirus-specific T Cells for Prophylaxis and Immunotherapy of COVID-19

  • Pawel Muranski, MD, Medicine

2019-2020 TRx Pilot Awardees

Data-Driven Design of Biologics for the Next Generation of Drug Discovery

  • Harmen Bussemaker, PhD, Biological Sciences

ReSTORx: A Next-Generation Therapeutic Modality for Protein Stabilization

  • Henry Colecraft, PhD, Physiology and Cellular Biophysics and Pharmacology

Synthetic Design of a Novel Resilience-enhancing Small Molecule Therapeutic Targeting 5-HT4Rs

  • Christine Ann Denny, PhD, Psychiatry

Targeting Rare Pediatric Disease Neimann-Pick Type C and Alzheimer’s Disease with Activators of Lecithin

  • Laura Beth McIntire, PhD, Pathology and Cell Biology

Using Engineered Exosomes for Genome Editing of Lung Cancer Targeting KRAS Mutation

  • Flora Momen-Heravi, PhD, Dental Medicine

2018-2019 TRx Pilot Awardees

Lx6171: A New Therapeutic for the Highly Disabling Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia 

  • Catherine Clelland, PhD, Pathology & Cell Biology
  • James Clelland, PhD, Psychiatry (NYU)

Preclinical Optimization of DNA and mRNA-based Endotope Platforms

  • Remi Creusot, PhD, Medicine
  • Magdalena Bogun, MD, Medicine

Programmable Bacteria for Oral Delivery of Tumor-targeted Immunotherapy 

  • Tal Danino, PhD, Biomedical Engineering 
  • Nicholas Arpaia, PhD, Microbiology and Immunology 

Inhaled Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor as a Treatment for COPD 

  • Jeanine D'Armiento, PhD, Medicine
  • Adam Gerber, MD, PhD, Anesthesiology

Developing PI3 Kinase Inhibitors for T Cell Lymphoma 

  • Changchun Deng, MD, PhD, Medicine
  • Jennifer K. Lue, MD, Medicine

Drug Based Modulation of Endogenous Fibrocartilage Stem Cells for TMJ Regeneration 

  • Mildred Embree, DMD, PhD, Dental Medicine

Validating OncoTreat, a Systems Biology Approach to Predict Drug Sensitivity, in Advanced Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors

  • Gary Schwartz, MD, Medicine
  • Andrea Califano, PhD, Systems Biology 

Development of a Novel Beta2-blocker for Treating Pancreatic Cancer

  • Timothy C. Wang, MD, Medicine
  • Donald Landry, MD, PhD, Chair, Medicine

 

2017-2018 TRx Pilot Awardees

  • Engineered Deubiquitinases: A Novel Therapeutic Platform
  • Henry M. Colecraft, PhD, Associate Professor of Physiology & Cellular Biophysics
  • Alice Prince, MD, Professor of Pediatrics in Pharmacology 

Theridase: Therapy for Cerebral Edema and Increased Intracranial Pressure

  • Steve Kernie, MD, Professor of Pediatrics in Neurology
  • Barclay Morrison, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering 

MAP4K2 as a Therapeutic Target of Multiple Myeloma and Development of Novel Targeting Drugs

  • Suzanne Lentzsch, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine
  • Don Landry, MD, PhD, Samuel Bard Professor of Medicine

CalCardia: Fixing Abnormal Calcium Handling in Sick Hearts

  • Steven Marx, MD, Professor of Medicine in Pharmacology
  • Alexander Kushnir, MD, PhD, Cardiac Electrophysiology Fellow

Optimization of the Isopomiferin Scaffold as an HDAC-based Precision Medicine for MycNAMP Nueroblastoma 

  • Brent Stockwell, PhD, Professor of Biological Sciences and Chemistry
  • Darrell Yamashiro, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Pathology & Cell Biology and Pediatrics

Injectable Cell-based Therapy of Micro-Tissues for Extremely Rapid Recovery of Ischemic Conditions

  • Samuel Sia, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering
  • Danielle Bajakian, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery 

2016-2017 TRx Pilot Awardees

Using Anti-Sense Oligonucleotides as New Therapeutic Modality for Psychiatric and Cognitive Disorders

  • Joseph Gogos, MD, PhD, Physiology/Cell Biophysics
  • Sander Markx, MD, Psych Molecular Therapeutics

Direct Application of Antibody Impregnated Bioengineered Patch to Improve Wound Healing in Diabetes

  • Lynne Johnson, MD, Medicine
  • Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, PhD, Biomedical Engineering

Suppression of Oncogene Transcription by PNAs as Cancer Therapy

  • Jeffrey Rothman, MD, PhD, Medicine
  • Gary Schwartz, MD, Medicine

Regulation of Appetite by the Skeleton

  • Mishaela Rubin, MD, Medicine: Physiology/Cell Biophysics
  • Stavroula Kousteni, PhD, Medicine