Launch Blue Announces Fourth UAccel Cohort
February 1, 2022
Launch Blue is pleased to announce that 11 teams have been selected to participate in the 12-week Spring 2022 UAccel program.
UAccel is a Launch Blue cohort organized in partnership with the University of Kentucky Office of Technology Commercialization and Kentucky Commercialization Ventures. The program is designed to offer business development and an experiential learning opportunity to innovators in higher education interested in learning the best commercialization path for their technology. The goal of the program is to advance the technology toward commercialization, including preparations for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant applications, the creation of a startup, or licensing of the technology.
Candidates were selected through a competitive application and interview process. The final selections for the cohort were determined by a selection committee appointed by the organizing partners. Applications for the Fall 2022 UAccel cohort will open this summer. (Click here to sign up to be notified)
Participants in the Spring 2022 Cohort are:
Trey Alexander, PhD,
MHA, MS, PMP, Research Project Manager, University of Kentucky
Jamie Studts, PhD, Director of Clinical and Community Research Shared Resource Facility Markey Cancer Center, University of Kentucky
A novel scoring system, Quality Implementation of Lung Screening (QUILS), that provides feedback to screening programs and identifies opportunities for improvement or encourages programs to continue providing excellence in lung screening.
Tim Butterfield, PhD, Professor, College of Health Sciences, University of Kentucky
A device that is designed to permit the proper tuning and quantification of the mechano-therapeutic loads applied during massage. Real time data acquisition allows calculation of the dose of mechanotherapy imparted to the tissues and provides feedback for massage control and stored data for individualized assessment of optimum therapeutic dose-response.
Nicholas Caporusso, PhD, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Northern Kentucky University
Brett Thaman, Student in Computer Science, Northern Kentucky University
Trung Cao, Student in Applied Software Engineering, Northern Kentucky University
Cursor is a gaze tracking and sharing solution for enhancing collaboration in remote sessions.
Ming-Yuan Chih, PhD, Associate Professor, College of Health Sciences, University of Kentucky
A mobile and wearable system to support bone marrow transplant patients' recovery journey. This support system aims to promote patients’ physical activity, improve their communication with providers, and boost their motivation for recovery.
Kevin Donohue, PhD, CEO and Co-founder
Matthew Ruffner, Co-founder and Inventor
Michael Sikora, Co-founder and Inventor
Movetones’ technology focuses on augmenting motion-to-music devices with sensory aids to guide motion and timing to build skill levels and better engage beginner musicians and music educators.
Chris Gant, PhD, Researcher, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky
In-vivo brain imaging requires extremely stable images and a versatile system that can be utilized in any number of imaging configurations. This in-vivo head stabilization system is stable and adaptable to any imaging system, allowing for easy implementation, rapid results, and repeatability.
Chad Risko, PhD, Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of Kentucky
Rebekah Duke, Chemistry Graduate Student, University of Kentucky
Vinayak Bhat, Chemistry Graduate Student, University of Kentucky
ExpFlow provides a robust way to store standardized experimental procedures and data for consistent reporting. Integrating ExpFlow into one's experimental and data analysis workflows will allow for more time for discovery, and less worrying about experimental reproducibility, data management, and data sharing.
Stefan Stamm, PhD, Founder of CircCure
Justin Welden, PhD, Co-Founder of CircCure
CircCure’s therapeutic technology selectively removes tau circular RNAs before they can act as seeds for neurofibrillary tangles that likely cause nerve cell death leading to Alzheimer’s disease. Our technology
will be tested in a Phase I clinical trial.
Rachel Tinius, PhD, ACSM-EP-C, FACSM, Associate Professor, Exercise Science, Western Kentucky University
Ubaha Shipoke, MBA Candidate, London Business School
BumptUp is a mobile app that seeks to provide women with personalized, evidence-based physical activity guidance to help them be healthier throughout pregnancy and postpartum.
Wang-Xia Wang, PhD, Assistant Professor, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky
A microRNA biomarker panel that can accurately determine a patient’s risk of developing cerebral vasospasm.
Guoqiang Yu, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Kentucky
An innovative low-cost, wearable, fluorescence imaging device that can be attached to the standard surgical eye loupes for helping neurosurgeons to easily and accurately identify brain tumors for safe and maximal resection.