From a virtual ceremony to mark the first year of operation for the Innovation and Research Park (IRP) to the announcement of $2 million in state funding to accelerate buildout of the IRP’s industry wet lab space, 2021 was a year filled with advancement for Rosalind Franklin University and its research teams. As we head toward 2022, here’s a look back at some of the headlines that emerged thanks to the collaboration and expertise witnessed every day on the RFU campus.

The university celebrated the IRP’s first anniversary with a virtual ribbon cutting on Jan. 28 that featured remarks from RFU senior leadership, board members, faculty and leaders from government, bioscience industry and economic development sectors, including Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and Senators Richard Durbin and Tammy Duckworth.

The Helix 51 incubator expanded its membership as it works to support early-stage bioscience companies through services that include programs such as Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR), internship programs and assistance from SCORE. We also became a member of the Illinois University Incubator Network (IUIN), and with IUIN support, organized and led a half-day state-wide symposia on a deep dive into NIH and NSF-SBIR/STTR programs and opportunities for Biomedical Companies with NIH/NSF program directors.

New companies that joined Helix 51 included:

• Covira Surgical: Novel therapy for preventing infection from postoperative procedures. Covira Surgical has been named by Business Worldwide Magazine (BWM) in its list of Top 20 Most Innovative Companies to Watch, 2021. The company has developed an innovative approach using synthetic chemistry to prevent post-surgical infections, placing it among the most disruptive companies in the world.
• Instil Bio: A cell-therapy company focused on cancer.
• Everyplace Labs: A diagnostics company with a platform for various viruses including COVID.
• Targacell: A cardiac stem cell delivery company.
• Enzyme-By-Design: A cancer-products company using novel enzyme-based therapy.
• Artec Bio: a cancer-products company using NK (natural killer) cell immunotherapy.

Helix 51 will more than double its size in 2022 with the addition of approximately 6,000 square feet of wet lab space in the IRP to accommodate an additional nine early-stage companies. RFU was also awarded $125,000 by the Searle Funds at the Chicago Community Trust to expand its EIR and internship programs given the planned expansion of the Helix 51 Incubator. Additional EIR expertise in the areas of FDA regulatory knowledge, product scale-up and development, intellectual property strategy, and corporate legal advice and strategy are being added in December with industry experts.

We are also rolling out a robust training program for our RFU community as well as the incubator companies. Helix 51’s EIR program started in 2021 with assistance in grant funding and positioning companies for partnering and investor deals. Helix 51 is the only wet lab-based incubator in Lake County and the northern Chicago suburbs.

The IRP welcomed its first industry tenants in 2021:

• Inspirotec: Developing a novel sensor to detect allergens and pathogens (including COVID); Inspirotec “graduated” from the Helix 51 Incubator and moved into state-of-the-art space in the IRP over the summer. The Inspirotec management team and founders are former executives and researchers from Abbott.
• SHIELD Illinois: A nonprofit unit of the University of Illinois System dedicated to providing free saliva-based COVID-19 testing for public schools from kindergarten to 12th grade, SHIELD processes tests from northern Cook and Lake counties in the IRP.

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) announced in October that RFU was the recipient of a $2 million matching grant that will allow the university to complete the build-out of the IRP’s industry space (approximately 25,000 square feet). The grant is part of the state’s Wet Lab Capital program, which leverages Rebuild Illinois dollars to fund advancements in research and medicine, and the IRP’s inclusion in the program was highlighted in regional media outlets that included Crain’s Chicago Business and Tribune Publishing.

A sampling of RFU New Inventions:

• Michelle Hastings, PhD, director for the Center for Genetic Diseases, is identifying new antisense compounds for Cystic Fibrosis and CLN3 disease.
• Noah Rosenblatt, PhD; Sai Vikas Yalla, PhD; and Sunjung Kim, Ph.D, from the Center for Lower Extremity Ambulatory Research (CLEAR), published “Durability Test System for Repetitive Loading of a Prosthetic Socket.”
• June Mayor, Ron Kaplan, PhD, Executive Vice-President for Research, and Shivaputra Patil, PhD, of the College of Pharmacy, are identifying new compounds for cancer therapy.
• John Buolamwini, PhD, Chair of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, and collaborators at the University of Tennessee, and Cedars- Sinai Center are identifying new compounds for cancer.

NIH Funding: 

• William Frost, PhD, director of the Stanson Toshok Center for Brain Function and Repair within RFU’s Brain Science Institute, was awarded a $1.95 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how the brain develops and sustains focus when responding to novel stimuli.

Industry Research Collaborations: In September, RFU announced a research collaboration with Aptinyx, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, and RFU’s Brain Science Institute and three of its researchers to support the development of new therapeutics for a number of brain diseases and disorders.

Research Publications: Among the 187 RFU publications and review articles in 2021, a study led by neuroscientist Lise Eliot was the first to coalesce wide-ranging research on differences between men’s and women’s brains into a single mega-synthesis. “Men and women’s brains do differ slightly,” Dr. Eliot said, “but the key finding is that these distinctions are due to brain size, not sex or gender.” Her study of studies, “Dump the ‘dimorphism’: Comprehensive synthesis of human brain studies reveals few male-female differences beyond size,” was published in June in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews.

New Epidemiology Program: RFU announced a new epidemiology program focused on community-based research. The highly-collaborative research initiative will engage new and existing partners who are already working to systematically identify, prevent and eliminate health disparities in local underserved communities. The recruitment of a research-oriented epidemiologist is underway.

New research appointments include: 

• Assistant Professor Rahul Vijay, DVM, PhD, in the Center for Cancer Cell Biology, Immunology and Infection; 
• Assistant Professor Holly Hunsberger, PhD, in the Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases and Therapeutics; and 
• Chicago Medical School Clinical Director of Research Dennis Stevens, MD, MS.

Together with the SmartHealth Catalyst, RFU organized and sponsored the monthly BioPathways Entrepreneurial Series. For 2021, RFU, and SmartHealth teamed up with Women in Bio-Chicago Chapter to focus on the theme of extraordinary women biotech leadership in the U.S. BP events included: 

• January: “Advancing Healthcare” with Karen Heidelberger, Partner, Deerfield Management;
• February: “Importance of Science in Public Health Response” with Jennifer Layden, MD, PhD, deputy director, Office of Science, CDC;
• March: “The Impact of COVID on Abbott’s Innovations” with Andrea Wainer, executive vice president, Rapid and Molecular Diagnostics, Abbott;
• April: “VC Funding Trends in Illinois during a Pandemic” with Maura O'Hara, executive director at the Illinois Venture Capital Association; 
• May: “Funding University Deep Tech” on May 11 with Nancy Sullivan, CEO and managing director of Illinois Ventures; 
• June: “ The Community Role of a Medical School during a Pandemic” with Archana Chatterjee, dean of the Chicago Medical School; Dr. Chatterjee continues to be a national voice on the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. As a member of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), Dr. Chatterjee has provided numerous interviews for print, online and television media outlets to discuss the efficacy of vaccines and the threat posed by variants of the virus. Her observations have been featured in publications that include The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, and fivethiryeight.com.
• July: “Accelerating Health Innovation for Military and Civilian Populations” with Jill Sorensen, COO of the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium; 
• August: “Cells Aren't Enough: The Power of Regenerative Medicine” with Caralynn Nowinski Collens, MD, CEO of Dimension Inx; 
• September: “New Solutions for Rare Diseases” with Keli Walbert, executive vice president, Strategic Marketing and Infused Medicines, Horizon Therapeutics;
• October: “Building a Diverse, Equitable, and Collaborative Biotech Research Ecosystem” with Michelle Hoffmann, executive director of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium;
• November: “Achieving Health Equity: Why Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Matter” with Kerri Norris, PhD, Vice President, Health Equity & DEI, The Hemophilia Foundation;
• December: “Venture Philanthropy: Where Venture Capital Meets Social Impact”, Lindsay Androski, Founder, President and CEO, Roivant Social Ventures

BioPathways completed its fourth year of non-stop programming in 2021: now on to year five! The 2022 program will continue to partner with Women in Bio.

The University hosted its inaugural Bioscience Start-Up Business Plan Competition (BPC) on July 21 in collaboration with SmartHealth Activator, a healthcare ventures accelerator, and SCORE. The BPC was the culmination of a four-month training program that paired 20 Chicagoland startups with industry mentors and business executives from SCORE who provided coaching on elevator pitches, business plan development and longer pitches with audio-visual materials. The program was sponsored by a number of industry partners, many of whom also participated as judges.