MIT Future Founders Initiative announces prize competition to promote female entrepreneurs in biotech

In a fitting sequel to its entrepreneurship “boot camp” instructional lecture sequence past slide, the MIT Potential Founders Initiative has declared the MIT Long term Founders Prize Level of competition, supported by Northpond Ventures, and named the MIT school cohort that will participate in this year’s opposition. The Potential Founders Initiative was founded in 2020 to encourage woman entrepreneurship in biotech.

Even with increasing illustration at MIT, female science and engineering faculty located biotech startups at a disproportionately low amount as opposed with their male colleagues, in accordance to study led by the initiative’s founders, MIT Professor Sangeeta Bhatia, MIT Professor and President Emerita Susan Hockfield, and MIT Amgen Professor of Biology Emerita Nancy Hopkins. In addition to highlighting systemic gender imbalances in the biotech pipeline, the initiative’s founders emphasize that the dearth of female biotech business people represents lost prospects for culture as a total — a bottleneck in the proliferation of publicly available medical and technological innovation.

“A extremely prevalent myth is that representation of females in the pipeline is having superior with time … We can now seem at the facts … and only say, ‘that’s not true’,” stated Bhatia, who is the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Overall health Sciences and Know-how and Electrical Engineering and Laptop Science, and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Investigation and the Institute for Clinical Engineering and Science, in an interview for the March/April 2021 MIT College Publication. “We have to have new answers. This is not just about waiting and staying optimistic.”

Encouraged by generous funding from Northpond Labs, the study and progress-concentrated affiliate of Northpond Ventures, and by the accomplishment of other MIT prize incentive competitions these kinds of as the Local climate Tech and Vitality Prize, the Potential Founders Initiative Prize Competitiveness will be structured as a discovering cohort in which individuals will be supported in commercializing their existing inventions with instruction in market assessments, fundraising, and business capitalization, as effectively as other programming. The program, which is getting run as a partnership concerning the MIT College of Engineering and the Martin Rely on Heart for MIT Entrepreneurship, gives palms-on options to study from marketplace leaders about their ordeals, ranging from licensing technology to generating early startup firms. Bhatia and Package Hickey, an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Martin Have confidence in Heart and senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan Faculty of Management, are co-directors of the method.

“The competition is an remarkable work to improve the range of female college who translate their research and suggestions into true-globe programs through entrepreneurship,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of the MIT College of Engineering and Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Personal computer Science. “Our hope is that this similarly serves as an chance for contributors to gain publicity and working experience to the quite a few approaches in which they could reach industrial affect as a result of their study.”

At the end of the software, the cohort associates will pitch their ideas to a collection committee composed of MIT faculty, biotech founders, and enterprise capitalists. The grand prize winner will obtain $250,000 in discretionary money, and two runners-up will acquire $100,000. The winners will be declared at a showcase celebration, at which the full cohort will existing their function. All individuals will also get a $10,000 stipend for participating in the opposition.

“The most important payoff is not identifying the winner of the level of competition,” states Bhatia. “Really, what we are accomplishing is developing a cohort … and then, at the finish, we want to generate a large amount of visibility for these ladies and make them ‘top of mind’ in the group.”

The Choice Committee users for the MIT Foreseeable future Founders Prize Opposition are:

Invoice Aulet, professor of the practice in the MIT Sloan Faculty of Administration and controlling director of the Martin Trust Heart for MIT Entrepreneurship
Sangeeta Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Electrical Engineering and Pc Science at MIT a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and founder of Hepregen, Glympse Bio, and Satellite Bio
Kit Hickey, senior lecturer in the MIT Sloan College of Management and entrepreneur-in-residence at the Martin Believe in Middle
Susan Hockfield, MIT president emerita and professor of neuroscience
Andrea Jackson, director at Northpond Ventures
Harvey Lodish, professor of biology and biomedical engineering at MIT and founder of Genzyme, Millennium, and Rubius
Fiona Murray, associate dean for innovation and inclusion in the MIT Sloan Faculty of Management the William Porter Professor of Entrepreneurship co-director of the MIT Innovation Initiative and college director of the MIT Legatum Middle
Amy Schulman, founding CEO of Lyndra Therapeutics and husband or wife at Polaris Associates
Nandita Shangari, controlling director at Novartis Venture Fund

“As an financial investment firm dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs, we are acutely informed of the limited number of companies established and led by women in academia. We think humanity should be benefiting from amazing suggestions and scientific breakthroughs from females in science, which could tackle numerous of the world’s most pressing challenges. With each other with MIT, we are giving an chance for women school customers to enrich their visibility and obtain obtain to the enterprise funds ecosystem,” states Andrea Jackson, director at Northpond Ventures.

“This very first cohort is consultant of the unrealized opportunity this system is created to capture. Even though it will choose a though to make a strong local community of connections and purpose models, I am delighted and self-confident this software will make entrepreneurship extra accessible and inclusive to our local community, which will drastically reward modern society,” states Susan Hockfield, MIT president emerita.

The MIT Long run Founders Prize Opposition cohort users had been chosen from universities across MIT, which includes the University of Science, the College of Engineering, and Media Lab within the College of Architecture and Setting up. They are:

Polina Anikeeva is professor of components science and engineering and mind and cognitive sciences, an affiliate member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Study, and the affiliate director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics. She is particularly interested in advancing the risk of future neuroprosthetics, via biologically-knowledgeable elements synthesis, modeling, and gadget fabrication. Anikeeva gained her BS in biophysics from St. Petersburg Point out Polytechnic University and her PhD in materials science and engineering from MIT.

Natalie Artzi is principal investigate scientist in the Institute of Medical Engineering and Science and an assistant professor in the division of drugs at Brigham and Women’s Clinic. By way of the development of sensible supplies and medical gadgets, her investigate seeks to “personalize” medical interventions based mostly on the specific presentation of diseased tissue in a offered client. She attained the two her BS and PhD in chemical engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technological know-how.

Laurie A. Boyer is professor of biology and biological engineering in the Section of Biology. By finding out how varied molecular applications cross-chat to control the building heart, she seeks to establish new therapies that can support maintenance cardiac tissue. She earned her BS in biomedical science from Framingham State College and her PhD from the University of Massachusetts Clinical Faculty.

Tal Cohen is associate professor in the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. She wields her knowing of how supplies behave when they are pushed to their extremes to deal with engineering challenges in medicine and market. She attained her BS, MS, and PhD in aerospace engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

Canan Dagdeviren is assistant professor of media arts and sciences and the LG Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences. Her investigate emphasis is on producing new sensing, strength harvesting, and actuation gadgets that can be stretched, wrapped, folded, twisted, and implanted on to the human human body while keeping exceptional effectiveness. She gained her BS in physics engineering from Hacettepe University, her MS in resources science and engineering from Sabanci College, and her PhD in resources science and engineering from the College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Ariel Furst is the Raymond (1921) & Helen St. Laurent Career Development Professor in the Office of Chemical Engineering. Her analysis addresses troubles in world health and sustainability, employing electrochemical methods and biomaterials engineering. She is significantly intrigued in new systems that detect and handle disease. Furst earned her BS in chemistry at the University of Chicago and her PhD at Caltech.

Kristin Knouse is assistant professor in the Department of Biology and the Koch Institute for Integrative Most cancers Study. She develops tools to look into the molecular regulation of organ harm and regeneration straight inside of a living organism with the objective of uncovering novel therapeutic avenues for varied ailments. She acquired her BS in biology from Duke University, her PhD and MD by means of the Harvard and MIT MD-PhD application.

Elly Nedivi is the William R. (1964) & Linda R. Young Professor of Neuroscience at the Picower Institute for Discovering and Memory with joint appointments in the departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biology. By her study of neurons, genes, and proteins, Nedivi focuses on elucidating the mobile mechanisms that handle plasticity in the two the building and adult mind. She gained her BS in biology from Hebrew College and her PhD in neuroscience from Stanford College.

Ellen Roche is affiliate professor in the Division of Mechanical Engineering and Institute of Clinical Engineering and Science, and the W.M. Keck Career Development Professor in Biomedical Engineering. Borrowing concepts and design kinds she observes in character, Roche operates to acquire implantable therapeutic gadgets that support cardiac and other organic operate. She gained her bachelor’s diploma in biomedical engineering from the Countrywide University of Eire at Galway, her MS in bioengineering from Trinity School Dublin, and her PhD from Harvard University.