Dryden team earns CTP funding

Program supports research teams to address unmet clinical needs, make improvements in health care and introduce commercial products.
Dryden team earns CTP funding

Dr. Gerald Dryden (above) along with Dr. William Hnat are one of four University of Louisville research teams to receive new funding through the Coulter Translational Partnership.

Gerald W. Dryden, M.D., MSPH, M.Sc., is part of a University of Louisville research team to receive new funding through the university's Coulter Translational Partnership to develop devices to diagnose and treat cancer and close laparoscopic surgery sites.

A total of four research groups received new funding while the program continued funding to three others.

Dryden, an associate professor of medicine in the U of L Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition, is teaming with William Hnat, Ph.D., of the J.B. Speed School of Engineering's Department of Mechanical Engineering on the project titled "Preclinical Validation of a Novel Multiple Sample Biopsy Device."

"The Coulter Foundation funding is providing a critical resource for our development team to move our innovative endoscopic device designs from the drawing board to the endoscopy suite," Dryden said. "Without this resource, we would have difficulty getting it out of the concept stage. We now have a real chance of getting this device into the hands of clinicians within a fairly short period of time."

The five-year CTP program started in 2011 with $3.3 million in funding from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation and $1.67 million from U of L with a goal to support research teams of bioengineers and clinicians to address unmet clinical needs, make improvements in health care and introduce commercial products.

Desirable outcomes include inventions, patents, improved diagnosis and treatment of disease, commercial products, licenses, partnerships and start-up companies.

Funding proposals are evaluated on the basis of scientific merit, potential health care impact and significance, experience of the investigators, the potential for commercialization and the likelihood of successfully obtaining continued funding.