From Idea to Industry

CMU Supports MCS Researchers Transforming Ideas Into Opportunities

Stefanie Sydlik’s first research lab experience shaped her trajectory as a scientist-inventor.

As a junior at Carnegie Mellon University, she joined Rick McCullough’s lab, which was developing regioregular polythiophenes — plastics that conduct electricity. A few years before Sydlik joined the lab, McCullough co-founded Plextronics, Inc., a company that used his polymers to produce electronics such as solar panels and organic light emitting diodes. Plextronics was acquired by Solvay in 2014.

She recalls McCullough’s advice: simplify your synthesis for potential commercialization and, when you make something new, consider if it is patentable.

“I don’t think most chemists are taught to think: Is this an invention? You’re thinking, I’m mixing A and B and making C. Well, if no one’s ever made C before, that’s something new. It’s an invention,” said Sydlik, associate professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon. “His approach colored my whole career.”

For her graduate and postdoctoral training, she sought out mentors who addressed real-world problems that ultimately had commercial value. When she sought an institution for her career, one of her key factors was the university’s tech transfer ecosystem and policies. Her undergrad alma mater stood out.

“Carnegie Mellon has a really supportive environment for inventing and for inventors,” she said. “It encourages us to look and see if our research is patentable and provides the resources for helping us understand the business and entrepreneurship side. Not every university does.”

Today, Sydlik leads her own group at Carnegie Mellon that focuses on commercializable technologies for solving societal concerns. Her first start-up company, BioBind, is developing a therapy to treat low-level lead poisoning.

From research to revenue

Runyon said he receives emails daily from undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and alumni who are looking for advice or who have a potential invention. An important first step is to determine if they have something new. If so, the next step is to take the necessary steps to protect it. “But you also have to think about the other side, which is: do people actually want or need a solution to this problem?” Runyon said.

Sydlik learned this firsthand as part of the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program, which helps researchers investigate commercial potential of their work. Carnegie Mellon’s NSF I-Corps Hub Program is offered through the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship. During the seven-week, entrepreneurial training program, Sydlik and two of her team, Stephen Schmidt (Chemistry Ph.D. 2023) and Brian Holt (BME Ph.D. 2015, Chemistry Postdoc 2019) conducted customer discovery interviews with more than 100 people.

“We talked to them about the problem that our solution was trying to address and ascertained if they wanted the solution,” she said. Many of Sydlik’s technologies address heavy metal remediation, either with a systemic chelation treatment or technologies that remove heavy metals from food or water.

In this case, Sydlik was assessing the market viability of a cobalt chelator she designed to treat metallosis, a condition caused by the buildup and shedding of debris when metal joint replacement devices rub against each other. The interviews showed them that there wasn’t a market there. Metal-on-metal prosthetics are no longer used, and people with them either have them replaced or are happy.

“No one wanted our solution,” Sydlik said. “Our customer discovery led us to realize that people do want to get rid of all the other heavy metals, though. It’s not that big of a difference between cobalt and lead or mercury or arsenic.”

The end result? BioBind.

A number of Carnegie Mellon graduate students and postdoctoral researchers have gone through the I-Corps program, including Amber Lucas, who earned a Ph.D. in 2018 in biological sciences. Lucas co-founded Impact Proteomics with Biological Sciences Professor Jonathan Minden. Recognized by the innovation intelligence firm StartUs Insights as one of the top five biotech startup companies advancing biochemistry solutions globally, Impact Proteomics’ technology for immune-profiling and antigen discovery enables researchers across academia and industry to identify new therapeutic and diagnostic targets in a way that existing immunoassays cannot.

The university’s technology transfer ecosystem provides opportunities for students to participate in translational research, gain experience in the process of obtaining a patent and work with industry, start-ups and manufacturers.

Raman Bahal, who graduated with a Ph.D. in chemistry in 2012, was a student in Chemistry Professor Danith Ly’s lab during the time Ly was developing peptide nucleic acid (PNA) technologies that would go on to become the basis of his first start-up company NeuBase, which developed antisense therapies to address genetic diseases.

“Danith Ly is incredibly brilliant on the industry side and his inventions have had valuable impact,” Runyon said.

“I feel so lucky that I was part of that journey,” said Bahal, associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Connecticut. “I saw everything: how the gamma-PNA evolved in terms of synthesis, biological activity and startups from Danith’s lab.”

As a director of his own lab, Bahal modifies gamma-PNA molecules, using them to target oncogenic DNA, a root cause of cancer. He also has discerned that PNA can be used as a combination therapy for cancer treatment. He is working on patents for his technologies and is talking with venture capitalists about licensing the technology or launching a startup to get the therapies to patients.

Like Bahal, Sydlik said she lucked out in ending up with Rick as a mentor. “I really credit a lot of the formative ways that I think about research to Rick and to my experiences as an undergrad at Carnegie Mellon. And the tech transfer office really helps expose us to that other side of entrepreneurship beyond just being an inventor,” Sydlik said.