Funding announced by Governor Healey during the World Medical Innovation Forum; Investments drive research and development, explore the capabilities of data science, overcome challenges in therapeutic delivery, and support projects focused on women’s health
BOSTON—Today, the Healey-Driscoll Administration and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) announced $19.8 million in funding to support 15 projects driving life sciences innovation in Massachusetts.
These investments will provide critical, state-of-the-art research equipment to colleges, research institutions, and hospitals and drive innovation in research and development, data science, drug delivery, and women’s health. The MLSC is awarding funding through its capital programming portfolio, including the Research Infrastructure, Bits to Bytes, Novel Therapeutics Delivery, and Women’s Health Collaboration programs.
“Massachusetts is number one for health care and number one for innovation – and that’s in large part due to our state investments in health innovation,” said Governor Maura Healey. “This funding will provide state-of-the-art equipment to colleges, research institutions and hospitals that will drive lifesaving innovations in women’s health, drug delivery and beyond.”
“We are at an incredibly exciting time to pair investments in innovation with our values in areas such as health equity,” said Lt. Governor Kim Driscoll. “The Healey-Driscoll Administration is incredibly proud of our commitment to extending our lead in the life sciences sector, while also working with our partners in industry and healthcare to create a more equitable state for our residents. This is Massachusetts’ moment to lead.”
Since its inception, the MLSC has administered competitive capital programs to provide grants for projects totaling approximately $600 million that support the life sciences ecosystem in Massachusetts. In recent years, the Center designed its programming to address additional focus areas, such as women’s health, therapeutics delivery, and data science. This enables MLSC funding to further drive innovation in these sectors, as well as industry and academic collaboration.
“The Healey-Driscoll Administration is committed to ensuring Massachusetts remains bold and ambitious in its support of the life sciences industry,” said Secretary of Economic Development Yvonne Hao, who serves as Co-Chair of the MLSC Board of Directors. “The Massachusetts Life Sciences Initiative and the programs administered by the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center are critical to our competitiveness as a state and ensuring we lead on access and equity.”
The awards were announced by Governor Maura Healey during her remarks at the World Medical Innovation Forum. The Governor also announced new application rounds of MLSC programming for Research Infrastructure, Bits to Bytes, Novel Therapeutics Delivery, and the Women’s Health Initiative. The MLSC is adding an additional layer of equity to these returning programs during the application process, asking applicants to not only consider gender diversity, but other overlooked factors such as race, geography, and other social determinants of health.
The Center is also launching a new Health Equity program to provide smaller grants in areas around health equity, such as clinical trial recruitment, studying conditions which affect underrepresented populations, and ensuring datasets have representation from diverse groups.
“We are incredibly proud of this portfolio of awards through some of our most innovative programming,” said MLSC Acting CEO and Vice President of Economic Development and Partnerships Jeanne LeClair. “We are equally excited by the prospects of these new funding program rounds which we believe can drive further opportunities for collaboration around innovation and new areas such as health equity.”
Research Infrastructure Program
Applicants to the Research Infrastructure program are required to demonstrate the potential of their project to fill a gap or accelerate growth in the Massachusetts life sciences ecosystem. Additionally, they must provide specific details on how the equipment will be shared and marketed to other prospective industry and academic partners. Moreover, awardee institutions are required to regularly report usage of MLSC-funded equipment by external partners, including use by academic and industry scientists. The Center is awarding $11.5 million to support 4 projects.
Awardees:
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Biomolecular NMR Core Facility, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Award Amount: $4,416,301
Project Title: UMass Amherst 800 MHz NMR for structural biology, metabolomics, and workforce development
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Ciprian Catana, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital
Award Amount: $3,250,000
Project Title: Towards Integrative Medicine – Next-generation Whole-Body PET/CT to Study Interconnected Systems
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Leonard Zon, Boston Children’s Hospital
Award Amount: $2,557,584
Project Title: Stem Cell Imaging and Therapeutics Center
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Penyuang Liu, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Award Amount: $1,321,200
Project Title: Advanced Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometer for State-of-the-art Proteomics Applications in Life Sciences at UMass Lowell
Bits to Bytes Program
The role of data sciences in life science innovation has evolved rapidly and has the potential to catalyze discoveries at unprecedented rates. Investment in generating well-annotated datasets and training data scientists for life science research is required to sustain Massachusetts’s global leadership position in life science research and development. The MLSC launched its Bits to Bytes program in 2018 to provide grants for scientific projects that generate and analyze large datasets to answer pressing life sciences questions, and to attract and train data scientists in the Commonwealth. The Center is distributing over $3 million across 4 projects through Bits to Bytes.
Awardees:
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Christina Baer and Eviatar Yemini, UMass Chan Medical School
Award Amount: $800,000
Industry Partner(s): Iveric Bio, an Astellas Company
Project Title: Expanding into 3 dimensions: a new spatial omics technology at UMass Chan
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Susan Roberts and Dmitry Korkin, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Award Amount: $750,510
Industry Partner(s): SaponiQx
Project Title: Development of a robust strategy for production of vaccine adjuvants in Quillaja saponaria plant cell suspension culture
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Christos Mantzoros, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Award Amount: $750,000
Industry Partner(s): Laborp, Abbott, Agilos Therapeutics
Project Title: Advance the development of diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for NASH
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Nicole Duggan, MD and Tina Kapur, PhD, Brigham & Women’s Hospital
Award Amount: $750,000
Industry Partner(s): Centaur Diagnostics
Project Title: Advancing Point-of-Care Ultrasound Imaging through Deep Learning Model Development
Novel Therapeutics Delivery Program
The MLSC Novel Therapeutics Delivery program fosters the development of novel technologies and techniques for the delivery of existing or innovative therapies by partnering on projects at the intersection of engineering, biology, chemistry, and medicine. Innovative new therapies are dependent on advancements in drug delivery. However, the availability of such therapies is not accelerating at the rate with which technology is advancing. The program aims to capitalize and incentivize translational projects to address complex challenges in “therapeutic” delivery. Six projects are receiving funding this program year, totaling more than $4 million.
Awardees:
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Georgios Theocharidis, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Award Amount: $750,000
Industry Partner(s): SanaHeal, Inc.
Project Title: Development of novel active and programmable scaffolds for targeted therapeutic agent delivery in chronic wounds
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Giuseppe Pettinato, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Award Amount: $750,000
Industry Partner(s): Virion Tx
Project Title: Immune-mediated HBV viral clearance: In-Depth In Situ Analysis of Vaccine-Induced, HBV-Specific T Cells Targeting Infected Liver Organoids
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Samagya Banskota, Boston University
Award Amount: $750,000
Industry Partner(s): Nvelop Tx
Project Title: Advancing the delivery of genome editors with next-generation non-viral delivery systems
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Eric Smith, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Award Amount: $750,000
Industry Partner(s): Strand Tx
Project Title: RNA/LNP delivery of optimized CAR for immunotherapy of cancer
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Jim Gorman, Harvard Wyss Institute
Award Amount: $750,000
Project Title: Advancing brain shuttles toward IND through NHP studies and optimization for diverse drug types
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Jason Evans & David Kaplan, UMass Boston & Tufts University
Award Amount: $711,767
Industry Partner(s): Covaris
Project Title: Characterization of Protein-Based Nanoparticles for Life Science Needs
Women’s Health Collaboration Program
The Women’s Health Collaboration program supports collaborative projects that aim to improve the discovery, technical innovation, and/or analysis of datasets to answer pressing life science questions around women’s health. The Center is awarding $805,660 to support one project.
Awardees:
Awardee (PIs, Institution): Catherine Klapperich, Boston University
Award Amount: $805,660
Industry Partner(s): BioSens8
Project Title: Novel Biosensors for Monitoring Fertility at the Point of Care
About the MLSC
The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) is an economic development investment agency dedicated to supporting the growth and development of the life sciences in Massachusetts, home to the most verdant and productive life sciences ecosystem in the world. Through public-private funding initiatives, the MLSC supports innovation, research and development, commercialization, and manufacturing activities in the fields of biopharma, medical device, diagnostics and digital health. Since its creation in 2007, the MLSC has strategically deployed approximately $1 billion in Massachusetts, through a combination of grants, loans, capital infrastructure investments, tax incentives and workforce programs. These investments have created thousands of jobs and propelled the development of new therapies, devices and scientific advancements that are improving patient health and well-being in Massachusetts and beyond.
