MD Innovation Initiative awards first 3 tech transfer grants totaling $300K to BOSS, JHU researchers

The Maryland Technology Development Corporation is bullish about tech transfer in the Baltimore region, so much so that it’s now raising a $50 million fund specifically for investments for technology-transfer companies.
TEDCO’s other tech transfer program is the Maryland Innovation Initiative, which announced its first three funding awards totaling $299,678 on Wednesday.

From the press release:

To continue its work on a device for minimally-invasive bone graft surgery, BOSS [a medical startup] was approved to receive a $99,860 award. The second award, which totaled $99,818, will assist Dr. Edith Gurewitsch Allen, associate professor of gynecology/obstetrics, division of maternal fetal medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with research surrounding an umbilical cord blood collection device. The final award, in the amount of $100,000, was given to Dr. Kieren A. Marr, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, to research a new point-of-care diagnostic device for lung infections.

The money was awarded through Innovation Initiative’s Innovation Commercialization Program, “which provides funding to support the commercialization of qualified university technologies at three distinct stages: pre-commercial translational research (Phase I), commercialization planning (Phase II) and early-stage product development (Phase III),” according to the release.
Funding that comes from the Maryland Innovation Initiative is distributed to university startups or research efforts underway at the University of Maryland, College Park, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University and Morgan State University.