Commercialization Fellowship Program
The Institute of Translational Health Sciences and Washington Research Foundation (WRF) Summer Commercialization Fellowship Program offers graduate students with an entrepreneurial background an opportunity to build a commercialization plan for a promising technology.
Fellows are first paired with an early-stage technology from University of Washington’s CoMotion, Fred Hutch, Seattle Children’s, or Benaroya Research Institute. They then work with the inventors, as well as mentors from ITHS, WRF, the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship, and CoMotion, to evaluate if the technology presents a start-up or licensing opportunity.
The 10-week fellowship is divided into three phases: technology discovery and evaluation, market opportunity assessment, and product assessment. The fellowship concludes with a final presentation.
The fellowship awards five students with $10,000 stipends each and is managed by the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship, with support from ITHS, WRF, and CoMotion.
All UW Foster MBAs, Technology Entrepreneurship Certificate students (who have taken the core ENTRE classes), and graduate students with core entrepreneurial coursework in marketing, strategy, and finance in their backgrounds are eligible to apply.
Past fellows have included students from bioengineering, business, engineering, health sciences, pharmacology, information science, international relations, and law.
Additional information and application instructions. Questions? Email jlb42@uw.edu.
Investigators who think they could benefit from working with a commercialization fellow should contact Jessica Roberto to learn more.
Past MBA Fellows & Projects
Past MBA Fellows & Projects
Principal Investigator: Suzie Pun (Bioengineering) and Nathan White (Emergency Medicine)[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”LearnTogether”]Fellow: Nneka Ezeabogu
Project Lead: Bob Boiko, UW Senior Lecturer[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”RainCity HeartLab”]Fellow: Kevin Biealwski
Principal Investigator: Jay Heinecke, UW Medicine[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”Smart Lenses”]Fellow: Heather Lewis
Project Lead at Smart Lenses: Dr. Nerea Alayo
Founding Team: Prof. Karl F. Bohringer, Prof. Tueng T. Shen, Dr. Nerea Alayo and Dr. Mike T. Khbeis[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”Improved Angle Prosthetic”]Fellow: Megan Seeb
Principal Investigator: Murray Maitland, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”SMART-Cart”]Fellow: Karin Li
Principal Investigator: Don Stephanian, Development & Design Manager, Seattle Children’s Hospital[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_sep time_sep_title=”2014″][icon_timeline_item time_title=”Bright Start from Seattle Children’s Research Institute”]Fellow: Michelle Huynh
Principal Investigator: Dimitri Christakis[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”Arzeda: Synthetic Biology for a Sustainable Future”]Fellow: Thomas DeMaria
Project Lead at Arzeda: Alexandre Zanghellini
Founding Team: Eric Althoff, David Baker, Daniela Grabs, Alexandre Zanghellini[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”Pharmaceutical Clinical Research Organizations: New Markets & UW Drug Interaction Knowledge Base”]Fellow: Quynh-Anh Nguyen
Principal Investigator: Isabelle Ragueneau-Majlessi MD, Director[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”CSATS: Crowd Sourced Assessment of Technical Skill to Non-Experts”]Fellow: Jim Howes
Principal Investigator: Thomas Lendvay[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”Zovenza Bio: Novel Computationally-Designed Proteins as Antiviral Diagnostic And Therapeutic Products”]Fellow: Renuka Ramanathan
Company Founders: David Baker, PhD, Deb Fuller, PhD, Patricia Beckmann, PhD[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”PreCyte, Indicator Cell Assay (ICA): A Broadly Applicable Platform For Blood-Based Diagnostics”]Fellow: Shon Schmidt
Principal Investigators: Jennifer Smith and John Aitchison, Institute for Systems Biology, PreCyte Inc.[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_sep time_sep_title=”2013″][icon_timeline_item time_title=”Protein E – Improved Protein a Mimetic for Antibody Purification”]Fellow: Chenying Yang
Principal Investigators: David Baker and Eva-Maria Strauch[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”TH2A Cells in Allergy Diagnosis”]Fellow: Luke Goodrich
Principal Investigator: Erik Wambre[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”mPOWEr – mobile Post-Operative Wound Evaluator”]Fellow: Julie Mass
Principal Investigators: Heather Evans, Bill Lober, Patrick Sanger, Andrea Hartzler[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”PhoTec t – Rapid Blood Typing Device”]Fellow: Joel Duck
Principal Investigators: Dan Ratner and Jill Johnsen[/icon_timeline_item][icon_timeline_item time_title=”KumaMax– Therapeutic Enzyme for Celiac Disease”]Fellow: Will Canestaro
Principal Investigators: David Baker and Ingrid Pultz[/icon_timeline_item][/icon_timeline]