MIPS Round 37 Award Recipients

Projects approved for funding during this round. Some contracts may be pending.

Company: 20/20 GeneSystems, Inc. (Rockville)
Project: Optimizing a process for a new autoimmune disease and cancer diagnostic. The diagnostic utilizes a stack of peptide-coated membranes, each capable of capturing a specific antibody.
Total Project Budget: $92,858
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, College Park
Principal Investigator: Dr. Timothy A. Barbari, Professor, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

Company: Advanced Digital Forensic Solutions, Inc. (Silver Spring)
Project: Improve the company’s image and video recognition and analysis technology, for use by both law enforcement and intelligence agents to find suspect data.
Total Project Budget: $108,327
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, College Park
Principal Investigator: Dr. David Doermann, Associate Research Scientist, UMIACS

Company: A&G Pharmaceutical, Inc. (Columbia)
Project: Pre-clinical study of small-molecule drug candidates to inhibit rheumatoid arthritis progression, a disease affecting 2.1 million Americans.
Total Project Budget: $112,078
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, Baltimore
Principal Investigator: Dr. Jun Hayashi, Associate Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Company: Alba Therapeutics Corporation (Baltimore)
Project: Cloning and characterizing the human receptor for zonulin, a protein regulating the permeability of the intestine. Findings from the project’s first phase are being used to develop drug candidates for Celiac Disease and new onset Type 1 Diabetes.
Total Project Budget: $260,338
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, Baltimore
Principal Investigator: Dr. Alessio Fasano, Professor, Director of Pediatrics

Company: Automated Precision, Inc. (Rockville)
Project: Developing algorithms and prototype software to perform 3D inspection of automobile and aerospace parts.
Total Project Budget: $140,470
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, College Park
Principal Investigator: Dr. Satyandra K. Gupta, Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering and ISR

Company: BioFactura, Inc. (Rockville)
Project: Evaluating systems to commercially produce the MUC7 peptide, a potential therapeutic for fungal diseases ranging from oral thrush to life-threatening systemic infections.
Total Project Budget: $105,048
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, Biotechnology Institute
Principal Investigator: William E. Bentley, Professor, Center for Biosystems Research

Company: CryMed Technologies , Inc. (Baltimore)
Project: Clinical trial of a cryo-ablation device and method for freezing and killing cancerous and pre-cancerous cells in the esophagus.
Total Project Budget: $156,825
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, Baltimore
Principal Investigator: Dr. Bruce Greenwald, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine

Company: Imagilin Technology, LLC (Frederick)
Project: Developing a novel microencapsulation system to preserve the bioactivity of probiotics for animal feed and pet foods. The use of probiotics could reduce the amount of antibiotics fed to animals, as well as help prevent infectious diseases such as salmonella.
Total Project Budget: $131,747
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, College Park
Principal Investigator: Y. Martin Lo, Associate Professor, Nutrition and Food Science

Company: Mobitrum Corporation (Silver Spring)
Project: Designing high-speed, ultra-wideband wireless communications systems for smart devices to transmit data to and from consumer electronics, PC peripherals, and other devices, with speeds of 55 to 480 megabytes per second.
Total Project Budget: $118,710
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, College Park
Principal Investigator: Dr. K. J. Ray Liu, Professor, ECE/ISR

Company: NeoDiagnostix, Inc. (Rockville)
Project: Retrospective study to validate a highly sensitive and precise, gene-based test for oral cancer.
Total Project Budget: $96,244
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, Baltimore
Principal Investigator: Dr. John J. Sauk, Professor & Chair, Associate Dean, Administration & Training, Department of Diagnostic & Pathology Services

Company: Next Breath, LLC (Baltimore)
Project: Pre-clinical study of a new inhaler technology that could increase the percentage of a drug reaching a desired lung region following the inhalation of medication.
Total Project Budget: $117,378
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, Baltimore
Principal Investigator: Dr. Paul Shapiro, Associate Professor, Pharmaceutical Sciences

Company: Prasidiux, LLC (Bethesda)
Project: Refining and fabricating temperature indicators for biopharmaceutical and food products employing smart polymer gels.
Total Project Budget: $164,600
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, College Park
Principal Investigator: Dr. Srinivasa R. Raghavan, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering

Company: Praxair Services, Inc. (Laurel)
Project: Investigate the principles and techniques to accurately and effectively identify and classify anomalies integrate the advanced signal processing developed for ultrasonic inspection; and build a prototype system for automatic inspection and anomaly diagnosis of tanks and pipelines.
Total Project Budget: $346,625
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, College Park
Principal Investigator: K. J. Ray Liu, Professor, ECE/ISR

Company: Revelytix, Inc. (Hunt Valley)
Project: Developing an editor for creating ontologies (taxonomies incorporating implicit knowledge about what data means and how it's related to other data) that enables data to be interchanged and interoperable across many domains, whether it be in various government agencies or health care organizations.
Total Project Budget: $468,548
Partner Institution: University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Principal Investigator: Dr. Sergei Nirenburg, Professor, Computer Science & Electrical Engineering