NCInnovation’s Latest Round of Grant Funding Backs University Research Aimed at Real-World Impact

Thank you for joining us this Saturday morning. Today we’re checking back in on a project we believe in: NCInnovation. 

The nonprofit’s mission is to provide grants and R&D support to promising university research with potential for commercial applications once it exits the university. Put another way, NCInnovation backs the kind of university research that has underpinned American technological dominance for decades.

In an era of uncertainty for American universities (are they really fulfilling their role as fearless seekers of truth?), NCInnovation stands to orient university research portfolios toward actual, real-world technological challenges. That’s a good thing.

Browse through the 17 university research projects NCInnovation is supporting this year. The work ranges from agricultural technologies to disease therapies to advanced bandages with potential military applications. 

Dr. Zachary Russell at Appalachian State University, for example, is developing a robotic microscope “that can radically reduce the time, expertise, and cost needed to identify parasites in livestock and poultry.” Many readers of this newsletter are in the agricultural industry, and they can surely see the potential applications for this technology. 

In its coverage of Dr. Russell’s NCInnovation grant, WFDD reported that “fecal parasites can decrease farm animal stocks by about 20 percent. Finding them is a tedious process that requires a microbiologist or technician. The robotic version can speed up the process.”

Dr. Russell explained to the outlet his aim and the purpose of NCInnovation’s support for his research: “Our charge from NCInnovation is to accelerate this technology out of the university setting and create a production facility here in the High Country, providing jobs and opportunities for our graduates and for the community.”

That is – or perhaps more precisely, was and should be again – a core return that universities provide to their communities and the nation. Faculty researchers investigate new ways of doing things, some of them turn out to be harebrained, sure, but some of them turn out to be groundbreaking. Once a technology is proven in concept and then matures in a university lab, it can attract private investors. And after it exits the university, the private sector scales and deploys it.

Technologies that started on campus and advanced to the private sector are some of the most important innovations in history: CRISPR gene editing, insulin synthesis, and MRI technology are just three examples among many.

Consider also Dr. Susan Trammell’s NCInnovation-backed research at UNC Charlotte. Dr. Trammell is working on a laser technology that can enable vaccine storage at room temperature, as opposed to the cold storage that mostly exists today. If successful, her technology could reduce vaccine transport and storage costs by 80%. From public health workers in Africa to pharmaceutical companies in America and Europe, the potential applications of this technology are far-reaching.

Ronit Freeman, associate professor of applied physical sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill, was awarded an NCInnovation research and development grant to advance a promising new treatment for fibrosis. Freeman’s team is developing a novel inhalable therapy that could slow or even reverse the progression of fibrosis, an unprecedented step in human treatment for a disease where current options are severely limited and often ineffective.

Freeman’s work especially exemplifies the kind of cutting-edge innovation the organization is designed to accelerate – moving scientific discovery toward real-world application and economic opportunity.

The massive competitive advantage that university applied research – when properly focused on actual, real-world challenges – offers America is difficult to overstate. That’s why presidential administrations from Reagan to Obama to Trump have emphasized it over and over again. 

In 1987, for example, President Ronald Reagan ordered, “The head of each Executive department and agency, to the extent permitted by law, shall encourage and facilitate collaboration among Federal laboratories, State and local governments, universities, and the private sector, particularly small business, in order to assist in the transfer of technology to the marketplace.”

And in 2020 the Trump administration wrote about “bring[ing] together the Federal Government, industry, and academia, positioning us to leverage the full power and expertise of the United States innovation ecosystem for the betterment of our Nation.”

NCInnovation has so far approved 25 R&D grants at 13 of North Carolina’s public universities. The organization has also deployed seasoned business and research leaders across the state to help university faculty navigate what comes after their research completes the on-campus R&D sequence and is positioned to enter the private sector.

This is exactly what universities should be focusing on – solutions to real-world technological challenges that can enter the commercial market.