Texas A&M Funds Eight More Projects To Convert Discoveries Into Commercial Products
The ADM program invests an additional $1.35 million to help research teams move their high-impact innovations closer to marketplace.
To fast-track the process of converting discoveries into innovations and commercial products, Texas A&M University has awarded eight additional research teams with Advancing Discovery to Market (ADM) grants totaling nearly $1.35 million, the Division of Research announced today.
Launched in 2023, ADM has now awarded close to $10 million in innovation commercialization grants to a total of 47 teams at Texas A&M (22 awards in 2023 and 25 awards in 2024).
Designed to help Texas A&M researchers turn discoveries into commercially viable innovations, the ADM awards are available to university researchers, faculty, staff and students, along with personnel from Texas A&M AgriLife Research, the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
Texas A&M’s Office of the President and The Texas A&M University System’s Office of the Chancellor provide funding for the initiative.
“The ADM grants underscore our commitment to ensuring that the pioneering research conducted at Texas A&M translates into real-world benefits,” said Dr. Costas Georghiades, interim vice president for research at Texas A&M. “This initiative empowers our faculty, staff and students to overcome developmental hurdles, advance their discoveries and ultimately launch high-impact products and solutions.”
Dr. Henry Fadamiro, associate vice president for research strategic initiatives, leads and administers the program. In addition to Dr. Georghiades, the program’s management team includes Dr. Joe Elabd, vice chancellor for research; Blake Petty, executive director, McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship; and a representative from Texas A&M Innovation.
ADM proposals undergo a three-stage selection process, with the final stage featuring pitch presentations to an external review panel of entrepreneurs, investors and business leaders.
The program offers two award levels based on a discovery’s maturity.
Type 1 awards present $99,000 or less to research projects that have found an innovation but have yet to identify a specific application. Among recipients, principal investigators are:
- Vishal Gohil, Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Developing a therapeutic for genetic disorders of copper deficiency,” $99,000.
- Natalie Johnson, Public Health, “Optimization of clay-based filter to remove ‘forever’ chemicals from milk,” $99,000.
- Patricia Pietrantonio, Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Discovery of two small drug-like structural analog molecules with acaricidal and mosquitocidal activity, including a tick-pyrethroid resistant strain,” $98,724.
- Tristen Slamowitz, Engineering Medicine, “NP41-SPION nerve detection,” with co-principal investigators Cooper Lueck and Grace Gasper, Engineering Medicine, $99,000.
- Nithya Subramanian, Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Development of non-transgenic herbicide-resistant wheat,” with co-principal investigator Muthukumar Bagavathiannan, Jackie Rudd, Shuyu Liu and Russell Sutton, Agriculture and Life Sciences, $98,938.
- Junjie Zhang, Agriculture and Life Sciences, “EPPPL: an evolvable phage-based pilus-targeting protein library for controlling bacteria,” with co-principal investigator Jirapat Thongchol, Agriculture and Life Sciences, $99,000.
Type 2 awards provide between $100,000 and $500,000 for projects that are closer to market readiness, where the concept is established but requires refinement and validation. Among the recipients, principal investigators are:
- Gerard Cote, Engineering, “Non-Invasive wearable device for monitoring continuous cuffless blood pressure,” with co-principal investigators Carl Tong, Medicine, and Justin McMurray and Kimberly Branan, Engineering, $398,560.
- Maria Isabel Vales, Agriculture and Life Sciences, “Gene-edited waxy potatoes developed by Texas A&M University for food and industrial applications,” with co-principal investigators Keerti Rathore and Stephany Toinga-Villafuerte, Agriculture and Life Sciences, $355,427.
