Investing in Innovation: Forging a Path Forward

Investing In Innovation.

Forging a Path Forward.

WARF joins our community in celebrating the 175th year of our great public University of Wisconsin-Madison. UW’s contributions to our state, nation and world are tremendous and WARF’s mission is to support the research from which many of those contributions stem.

“Forging a Path Forward” signals the UW’s 175th and is emblematic of the partnership we have enjoyed with the university community for nearly a century.

WARF’s role is to support the innovative minds and brilliant ideas coming from the faculty, staff and students of UW-Madison and the Morgridge Institute for Research.

This season, let us share with you some of our favorite moments from the past year. In these pages you will find stories highlighting how ideas, technologies, startup enterprises and more have helped forge the path forward: • Learn how innovations from UW-Madison virologists are enabling the creation of next-generation flu vaccines recently licensed by WARF to Bharat Biotech International Limited, an Indian company led by a UW alum.

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Discover how UW-Madison innovators rose to our Mental Health and Big Data Challenges.

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Celebrate our 2023 WARF Innovation Award nominees, representing some of the most innovative disclosures presented to our staff during the year.

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Hear about a WARF outreach campaign designed to reach underrepresented faculty, drawing connections for how women and other minority faculty can disclose and patent their ideas with WARF.

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Discover some of WARF Accelerator’s most promising technologies, including those pitched to investors at Summerfest Tech 2023 and a carbon reduction technology that is now a new startup – Earth RepAIR.

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Explore our robust WARF Therapeutics pipeline.

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Learn about a WARF Ventures portfolio company – Leo Cancer Care – that has developed an advanced system for delivering proton therapy and is already claiming major health systems as its clients, including UW Health.

I hope you enjoy the latest updates from our Intellectual Property & Licensing team and so much more. I am proud of our accomplishments and most of all, our staff, Trustees and partnerships, this year.

My colleagues and I wish you and your family a joyous season along with good health and peace in the New Year.

Cheers–

Chief Executive Officer Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF)

SUPPORTING CAMPUS

WARF’s Annual Support for the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Morgridge Institute for Research The annual grants and operational and functional support that WARF provides to campus epitomize our vision to enable UW-Madison research to solve the world’s problems. “With the university celebrating its 175th anniversary this year,” says WARF Chair Jim Berbee, “we’re reminded that the impact on the people of Wisconsin—and the world—must be measured not in our lifetimes, but in centuries.”

A G u i d e t o W A R F S u p p o r t for UW–Madison 2024 WARF e xi sts to be n ef i t U W–M ad i s on

Consistent and Ongoing Support

The core annual grant this year makes $67.8 million available to the OVCRGE for ongoing research programs. Additional supplemental grants for 2024 provide targeted, timely contributions to research-related initiatives. WARF’s operational and functional support to UW-Madison, valued at $40.6 million, and a grant of $5.6 million to the universityaffiliated Morgridge Institute for Research round out the total for 2024 fiscal year support:

$134.1 million.

In addition to WARF’s traditional funding for faculty recruitment and retention, faculty fellowships, graduate student support and the Fall Research Competition, supplemental grants this year went to special STEM initiatives, specifically selected by the OVCRGE to receive targeted WARF funding.

“WARF’s investment provides our university the flexibility to nurture exciting new ideas and priorities across campus,” Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin says. “This support helps UW-Madison maintain our world-class faculty and provide students unique opportunities to learn and grow into Wisconsin’s next generation of leaders and innovators.”

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$13.5 million

Faculty Recruitment and Retention

$11.4 million

Fall Research Competition

$12.5 million

Graduate Student Support

$2.5 million $11.0 million

Faculty Fellowships Strategic Initiatives (including Research Forward)

$6.5 million

Grant Matches for Instrumentation, Facilities, Doctoral Training and Research Programs

$1.6 million

Leadership, Personnel, Policy and Implementation Support

$8.6 million

Cluster Hire Program and Campus Programming

$0.2 million

Additional Support

$67.8 million $2.8 million $11.3 million $6.0 million $87.9 million

$5.6 million $40.6 million

$134.1 million

Total annual grant to the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education Anticipated for WARF Accelerator and Therapeutics Programs Anticipated Department Royalty Shares & Distribution of Department Royalty Funds Special STEM Initiatives

Total annual support to UW–Madison Morgridge Institute for Research Operational and Functional Support

Together, funding for all university and affiliate organization categories

Corresponds to UW-Madison’s 2023-24 academic year

“WARF’s ongoing support of the Morgridge Institute has been an essential ingredient in our efforts to answer fundamental questions in human biology — answers that could greatly benefit health and well-being,” says Brad Schwartz, CEO of Morgridge.

“WARF support also enables us to be a catalyst with UW-Madison to support important new directions in biomedical research.”

WARF’S STRATEGIC PLAN 2023-2027

With the endorsement of the WARF Board of Trustees, WARF’s five-year strategic plan launched this year and staff are organizing to drive results in four key areas. Each area stands in service to how WARF will meet our mission to support UW-Madison and the Morgridge Institute for Research.

IPILLARS OFI IPROGRESS

The plan has an important Foundational Principle: Communications This principle is intended to ensure open, urgent and effective communications and ongoing feedback within WARF and with external stakeholders. By having it as our foundational principle, we recognize it has a role to drive all other aspects of the plan.

Each pillar is further defined as follows:

FINANCIAL STRENGTH

SUPPORTED ORGANIZATIONS

PEOPLE

Revenue

Annual Grant

Culture

Operating Efficiency

Strategic Financial Support

Relationships

Asset Management

Collaborative Support

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Financial Strength – Create opportunities for financial strength through well-executed efforts in traditional and innovative programs that take advantage of WARF’s technology transfer and asset management expertise.

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Revenue. Increase annual revenues from licensing and ventures to exceed operating expenses.

Operating Efficiency. Ensure WARF’s limited resources are utilized efficiently with attention on strengthening core competencies.

Asset Management. Strategically manage WARF’s balance sheet - patent portfolio, investments and real estate.

Supported Organizations – Support the UW-Madison community in dynamic and thoughtful ways, including dynamic support to help identify and receive additional research funding from a variety of sources.

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Culture. Live a values-driven culture.

Relationships. Engage with a wide range of stakeholders to carry out WARF’s mission and vision.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Ensure WARF’s hiring and operating policies promote diversity, equity & inclusion.

Further, WARF staff are focused on the following values to facilitate our work together in support of our mission: Teamwork, Innovation and Accountability.

WARF's VALUES

TE A M W

• •

ABILITY T N OU

People – Build and foster an environment for success that translates our values into productive and rewarding actions and energizes individuals to carry out WARF’s mission and vision.

INNOVATION

AC C

•

Annual Grant. Ensure strategic growth and use of WARF’s annual research grants.

Strategic Financial Support. Support the University and the Morgridge Institute for Research with targeted grants to support periodic special projects and infrastructure.

Collaborative Support. Provide support to assist the UW-Madison community in its research efforts, including capturing government and industry grants.

K OR

• •

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GROUNDBREAKING: CDIS building to foster high-tech innovation, collaboration Gov. Tony Evers, UW System President Jay Rothman, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, Interim Provost Eric Wilcots and Tom Erickson, founding director of CDIS, offered their thanks to John and Tashia Morgridge and WARF for their investments in the CDIS building at the groundbreaking last spring. WARF’s commitment to the project is $50 million, the largest ever for the foundation’s role in supporting a UW building.

Those helping break ground for the new CDIS building included, left to right in the front row, Erik Iverson, CEO of WARF; UW System President Jay Rothman; Interim Provost Eric Wilcots; Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin; and John and Tashia Morgridge, the principal donors. Back row from left, Bucky Badger; Tom Erickson, CDIS founding director; Stephen Van Dyck, LMN architect and partner; Jeff Piette, Kahler Slater vice president; Bo Muwahid, Facilities Planning & Management project manager; and Jim Yehle, president and CEO of Findorff.

Photo by Andy Manis

When it is completed, the building will house the School of Computer, Information & Data Sciences (CDIS) — which includes the Information School and the departments of Computer Sciences and Statistics — the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s Department of Biostatistics & Medical Informatics, the American Family Insurance Data Science Institute, the N+1 Institute and the Center for High Throughput Computing.

“The CDIS building will be a beacon of innovation and collaboration,” said Erickson, “a lighthouse for high tech in Wisconsin, nurturing a diverse and inclusive tech community, enabling computational fluency across all disciplines, supporting trailblazing research, cultivating entrepreneurs and attracting businesses to a highly skilled workforce.”

Evers expects the building and school’s influence to stretch far into Wisconsin’s future.

“The partnerships that have already developed here with leading industry and area employers will ensure that students will be prepared for the workforce and have countless opportunities available to them with their high-demand skills,” he said. “And that’s why as a state, creating a pipeline of students with programs like this will be critical to growing a future workforce and cultivating visionaries that will build the future that we all want for our state and the world.”

The new home for CDIS is a way to foster collaboration, multiplying the impact of technology across the university’s many deeply talented academic disciplines.

“This facility is going to allow us to do something that no other university in the country is doing — to bring together three top-ranked departments under one roof and anchor them in a high-tech corridor that links computing to biomedical research to engineering to medicine,” Mnookin said. “We know that to solve problems out in the world we need to work across. To build not just partnerships, but entire innovation ecosystems that draw in partners from all over campus and beyond to ignite groundbreaking discoveries and innovations that are going to change lives and power this state’s growing tech sector.”

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Dignitaries break ground on the new CDIS building on Tuesday, April 25.

Photo by Andy Manis

ENGAGING CAMPUS

BIG DATA

E G N E L L A CH

Launched in 2020, WARF’s Challenge Grants provide targeted funding to help innovators across campus pursue proof-of-concept work critical for building momentum behind emerging technologies in sectors of strategic commercial potential.

In fall 2022, WARF Accelerator kicked off two campus-wide Challenge Grants. The first, featuring big data, sought to advance next-generation data innovations.

The grant invited submissions for new technologies focused on processing and handling large amounts of data.

From applications in data-driven communications to enhanced imaging software, these projects have high potential to positively impact people throughout Wisconsin and beyond.

Twenty-four competitive research teams representing multiple schools and colleges applied for funding.

The selected projects are led by the following principal investigators: •

Kevin Eliceiri (Medical Physics) for a smart compression framework for multidimensional biomedical images

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Jomol Mathew with Mike Collins and Thomas Callaci (Population Health Sciences) for a scalable, secure platform for use with domain data needed for biomedical research

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Pedro Morgado (Electrical and Computer Engineering) for a context modeling framework for machine learning using naturally occurring video

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Aussie Suzuki (Oncology) for deep learning-based software to accurately determine karyotype of cells in basic research and clinical samples

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Sijia Yang (Journalism & Mass Communications) for building out adaptable and explainable vectionaries to improve data-driven strategic communications

“Turning big data into actionable information is critical to helping organizations identify new opportunities and make informed decisions,” says Erik Iverson, CEO of WARF. “We’re delighted to support UW-Madison innovators rising to the challenge of managing large amounts of data.”

CHALLENGE

E G N E L L A MENTAL HEALTH C H The second campus-wide Challenge Grant launched by WARF Accelerator in fall 2022 focused on mental health innovations. From helping screen for eating disorders to tackling depression, these technologies have high potential impact.

Researchers from multiple schools and colleges applied for funding.

The selected projects are led by the following principal investigators: •

Andy Garbacz with Stephen Kilgus and Katie Eklund (Educational Psychology) for an online version of the Resilience Education Program that identifies and provides mental health support for youth at risk for internalizing problems

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Seth McGee (Biology Core Curriculum) for a classroom curriculum that helps students understand how different environments and activities affect mental health by monitoring brain wave activity

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Katherine Schaumberg (Psychiatry) for an individualized body weight prediction tool for eating disorder screening and treatment

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Earlise Ward (Family Medicine & Community Health) for digitizing Oh Happy Day Class intervention modules, designed for African-American adults experiencing clinical depression

“We’re thrilled to support a new generation of technologies to measure and improve our emotional, psychological and social well-being,” says Erik Iverson, CEO of WARF. “Mental health plays an important role in our quality of life, and we’re excited to join UW-Madison researchers in taking on this great challenge.”

GRANTS

[ Four UW faculty recognized with

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Early Career Innovator Awards

The Early Career Innovator Awards, sponsored by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, helped kick off the 175th anniversary of the university in July by recognizing early career faculty members for engaging in technology transfer and commercialization activities.

“Throughout its history, UW-Madison researchers have produced transformative discoveries within a culture that fosters bringing those discoveries to the market,” says Steve Ackerman, Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education. “Recognizing early career faculty for their contributions to the commercialization of technology out of UW-Madison is a great way to celebrate our historical achievements in entrepreneurship while also looking forward to the promise of future innovation to come from the efforts of faculty such as these awardees.”

The awardees were selected by OVCRGE from a list of finalists provided by WARF. Awardees receive $50K in funding. Each has had multiple disclosures and inventions accepted for commercialization.

“These awardees and their inventions present exciting solutions to known important problems,” Ackerman says.

“These innovators are committed to the Wisconsin Idea by translating scientific findings into applications, products and services that can change the world.”

Early Career Innovators

Bhuvana Krishnaswamy, Ph.D.

Guelay Bilen-Rosas, MD

Ophelia Venturelli, Ph.D.

Quanyin Hu, Ph.D.

Achieving gender equity in tech transfer New research guides university tech transfer offices like WARF to cultivate women inventors

Jennifer Gottwald, Director of Licensing at WARF, wants as many UW-Madison inventors as possible to disclose their ideas to WARF and pursue patenting. Women comprise just 12.8% of total inventor-patentees in the U.S. in 2019, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, so Gottwald knows there’s plenty of untapped potential.

“My job is to license the technologies we have at WARF and find commercial partners for our patents,” she says.

“I want to see as many potential patents as possible coming out of UW, so that what I have in my portfolio to offer companies is as complete and high-quality as possible.”

Gottwald and colleagues at university technology transfer offices around the country recently published research on what motivates women inventors to file patents, plus recommendations for tech transfer offices like WARF on cultivating women inventors to progress toward gender parity in innovation. The paper was published in Technology & Innovation.

Communicating with researchers about the innovation process For UW researchers, filing an innovation disclosure with WARF is straightforward, beginning with a conversation with WARF staff. If WARF decides to pursue a patent, the team guides inventors through the process.

After learning about WARF at a department presentation in March 2016, Guelay Bilen-Rosas, an Assistant Professor of anesthesiology at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, followed up with WARF about an idea. The team encouraged her to submit an innovation disclosure and decided to patent her idea, awarding her a WARF Innovation Award later that year. She participated in WARF’s Accelerator program in 2017 and was the first UW-Madison School of Medicine faculty member to receive a WARF Accelerator Phase 2 award. She now holds four patents, which are the basis for a new startup opportunity she is pursuing.

Jennifer Gottwald, WARF Director of Licensing

“They helped me understand how the process works, educated me on what it means to submit an invention, and explained why it’s important as scientists to share important things that hopefully will have a big impact on humanity,” says Bilen-Rosas. “The process was very friendly and inviting.”

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Gottwald emphasizes the importance of sharing ideas with WARF early.

“Women often want things to be complete and finished before sharing them with the world,” says Gottwald. “But the requirement of novelty means we patent things that have maybe only been replicated three times in the lab.”

In addition to supporting researchers throughout the disclosure and patenting process, WARF connects researchers to collaborators on campus and in industry and shares funding and training opportunities.

“We love to hear about research, even if it’s not an invention we can take in now and protect through patenting,” Gottwald says. “Knowing about research can help us connect faculty with other researchers on campus and with companies, funding sources and other opportunities.”

Reasons and incentives to participate in the tech transfer process Gottwald and her co-authors found that in addition to being motivated to obtain research and development resources and collaborations, women academics are motivated to disclose ideas that have a direct impact on people in their communities and throughout the world.

“We’re your partner to give your research a real-world application, and we can connect you to companies, resources and education that can help you beyond publication,” Gottwald says. “If you want your research to be applied in the near term, we’re your partner to do that.”

Professor of Pediatrics at the State Hygiene Lab Mei Baker has worked with WARF for about 10 years, and several of her inventions have been licensed. Baker says anytime she develops a novel method of solving a practical scientific problem, she talks to WARF.

Mei Baker, MD, FACMG, Professor of Pediatrics at the State Hygiene Lab

“I’ve been in basic research my whole career, and solving immediate scientific problems is in my blood, so I’m interested in translational research,” Baker says. “If I find a way to invent something that could have a clinical impact, I submit it to WARF.” Ann Palmenberg, the Roland Rueckert Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, files invention disclosures regularly and holds 12 patents.

“No place else does what WARF does, and WARF makes it really streamlined for researchers,” Palmenberg says. “You don’t have to have a marketable idea; just write down what you think is useful and let them make the decision as to whether you file the paperwork for it.”

Palmenberg’s research group generates recombinant materials, and if she needs an antibody or reagent, she makes it herself, so anytime another researcher or company requests access to her materials, she immediately files an invention disclosure with WARF to protect her intellectual property and ensure that any publications or funding generated from it come back to the university.

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Ann Palmenberg, Ph.D., the Roland Rueckert Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, and Kelly Watters, Ph.D.

“My routine is to file IDRs [Innovation Disclosure Reports] before I send stuff out,” she says. “We want to have that IDR coverage, so I don’t send unpublished physical materials out to people and not get anything back.”

Gottwald envisions some ways in which incentives for innovation disclosures can be better aligned with faculty members’ existing priorities.

“Professors are often focused on obtaining tenure for the first five to seven years of their careers, and some universities take patenting into account for faculty tenure packages,” she says. “We’ve thought about recognizing people who are inventing and disclosing inventions in ways that can be reflected in their tenure packages, like small grant programs, awards and other recognitions.”

Bilen-Rosas believes the entire university, not just certain schools and departments, needs to reward innovation and include it in metrics for tenure and promotion.

“The university needs to provide funding and time without penalty to faculty across the university to pursue these activities,” she says. “Something has to measure this activity as success. Otherwise, how many ideas and how much money do we leave on the table, how much growth? I see innovation and potential everywhere.”

Prioritizing inclusive innovation Gottwald prioritizes inclusive innovation and says WARF continues to work to make tech transfer appealing to a diverse range of scientists.

“What we’re learning about women and the gender gap in patenting can be applied with fine-tuning and nuance to other underrepresented groups,” she says. “How can we change our processes and practices to better meet people from whom we’re not hearing?”

Bilen-Rosas believes WARF is on the right track because of the way WARF guides and supports inventors.

“WARF helped me feel confident about the patenting path and provided programs and mentorship,” says Bilen-Rosas. “WARF is an amazing entity with amazing people. Every single person I met believed in me and my growth and my potential. There is no other space or program like WARF where I felt that way.

I am where I am because of WARF.”

Guelay Bilen-Rosas, MD, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and Founder of AyrFlo Innovation Labs

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WARF Trusted Partners

A Campaign to Engage Campus and Industry Partners A campaign designed to engage campus and industry partners launched during the first half of 2023. #WARFTrustedPartners encouraged campus and industry partners to meet WARF’s Intellectual Property and Licensing managers and directors and strategic priority staff and featured short video profiles of staff in these areas. The campaign debuted January 31 and was produced in-house by WARF’s strategic communications and public affairs team.

Profiles include the staff member talking about their work, how they hope to work with the audience and how to contact them. The profiles were distributed in social media posts, Inside UW ads and copies of WARF Advances targeting key industries and also were featured in staff bios highlighted on warf.org.

The target audiences for the campaign included UW faculty, staff and students who care to learn more about the people they can work with to advance their research and patentable technologies at WARF, as well as key industry verticals.

Social posts and ads featuring the campaign were seen more than 1 million times.

The videos received an average of 84 views.

Lesli Mark, WARF Accelerator Associate

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Jeanan Yasiri Moe, Director of Strategic Communications and Public Affairs, interviews Jon Young, Head of WARF Therapeutics.

INVENTION TO COMMERCIALIZATION

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3 2 0 2 INNOVATION WARF

AWARDS

Every year, WARF’s IP and Licensing team sifts through the almost 400 innovation disclosures that we receive to identify those with high potential. The ones at the top of our list become the nominees for the WARF Innovation Awards. In 2023, the nominees ranged from oncology to entomology to quantum physics.

Regenerating and renewing heart tissue Asst. Prof. Ahmed Mahmoud, Prof. Timothy Kamp and Assoc. Prof. Youngsook Lee have interests in heart development and adult cardiac disease, the leading cause of death and hospitalizations in the world. This team has discovered a protein, LRRC10, that activates heart renewal and regeneration in animal models. This discovery could lead to a therapeutic that restores cardiac structure and function in human heart failure patients.

Powerful therapeutic for glioblastomas Asst. Prof. Mahua Dey specializes in the surgical management of brain and spinal cord tumors. She partnered with Jacques Galipeau, Marilyn Anderson Prof. of Oncology and an expert in cancer immunotherapy, to develop a vaccine to treat glioblastomas, a lethal form of brain cancer. The vaccine uses potent immune stimulators called fusokines to increase the development of T cells, the body’s natural disease fighters, and recruit them to the brain.

Eavesdropping on insects to protect crops Asst. Prof. Emily Bick develops tools and strategies to support data-driven precision agriculture management techniques. She has created a machine-learning algorithm to detect and identify insect infestations in crops, including boring insects that are difficult to identify without destroying crops. This non-destructive technology uses audio signals captured by inexpensive microphones to identify infestations and enables a more targeted application of pesticides.

Graduate student Dev Mehrotra is assisting with the development of the invention.

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Quantum computing without errors Distinguished Scientist Mark Friesen led a team of physicists that included Research Associate Benjamin Woods, John Bardeen Prof. of Physics Mark Eriksson, Research Assistant Emily Joseph and Honorary Associate Robert Joynt in the development of a quantum device that shows a significant increase in valley splitting, a key property needed for error-free quantum computing. The device features a novel structural composition that turns conventional wisdom on its head.

Potent new drug for type 2 diabetes, obesity With the commercial success of two well-known brands, pharmaceutical companies have an intense interest in additional therapeutics for the treatment of both obesity and type 2 diabetes. Ralph F. Hirschmann Prof. Samuel Gellman worked with postdoc Kyle Brown and graduate student Rylie Morris to develop a synthetic peptide that uses a more simplified design to target the same mechanisms as the drugs currently on the market.

Alloy protects jets at high speeds Hypersonic jets and jet turbines experience intense heating at extreme speeds, which can damage the body of the aircraft and lead to component malfunctions. Prof. Dan Thoma, a leader in materials science, and his graduate research assistant Michael Niezgoda have developed a novel molybdenum alloy that can protect these jets up to 1,600°C – 200°C more than current methods. This invention lowers maintenance time and costs for aircraft and enables higher mission readiness.

We announce the winners of the Innovation Awards in WARF’s Holiday Greeting each December.

To find out which of these nominees won the prize, visit warf.org/awards.

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Innovative Research and Discovery Across Disciplines

Disclosing an invention can be the first step in a lifechanging journey. Impactful technologies, from medical imaging tools to new plant varieties, come through WARF’s doors as disclosures. And great ideas across all disciplines feed this steady disclosure pipeline.

Of the 400+ disclosures submitted to WARF in fiscal year 2023, the School of Medicine and College of Engineering were the biggest contributors. But they were not alone. From Letters and Science to Veterinary Medicine, Pharmacy to Agricultural and Life Sciences – innovation is alive across campus.

“The disclosures we received this year highlight the transformative work at UW-Madison that positively impacts people across Wisconsin and the world,” says Michael Falk, WARF’s Chief Intellectual Property and Licensing Officer. “Behind these technologies are new tools and methods to beat cancer, empower farmers, realize clean energy, leverage machine learning and more.”

Disclosures Across Disciplines School of Medicine and Public Health College of Engineering College of Letters and Science College of Agricultural & Life Sciences OVCRGE (Graduate School) School of Pharmacy School of Veterinary Medicine School of Education School of Business School of Nursing School of Human Ecology

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80 100 120 140 160 180

Celebrating Romnes, Kellett & WARF Named Professors The Romnes Faculty Fellowships, Kellett Mid-Career Awards and WARF Named Professorships are some of the longest standing and most visible ways that WARF grants support UW-Madison research. This year the three awards were given to a total of 34 UW-Madison faculty members.

Romnes Faculty Fellowships recognize faculty with exceptional research contributions within their first six years from promotion to a tenured position. They are named in memoriam of Haakon Ingolf (“Hi”) Romnes, CEO of AT&T and WARF Trustee from 1965 to 1973, who passed away from leukemia during his term as board chair.

Kellett Mid-Career Awards support those promoted to tenured positions seven to 20 years ago who have made key research contributions in their fields. They are named for William R. Kellett, Kimberly-Clark CEO who served almost 50 years as an active WARF Trustee, the longest term in our history (1948-1997).

WARF Named Professorships honor faculty who have made major contributions to the advancement of knowledge.

They date as far back as 1933, when WARF supported a professorship for legendary Wisconsin conservationist Aldo Leopold. The professorships became an annual tradition in the 1950s, and recipient faculty are given the privilege of naming their professorship. Most choose an important mentor or cherished colleague to carry forward a legacy.

WARF CEO Erik Iverson spoke at a campus celebration honoring the recipients this past September.

UW-Madison Researchers Honored as Inventors In December 2022, the National Academy of Inventors named Professors Susan Hagness, Jo Handelsman and Justin Williams as NAI Fellows, the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors.

The NAI Fellows Program “highlights academic inventors who have demonstrated a spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society,” according to the academy.

Each year, WARF collaborates with Discovery to Product (D2P) to submit NAI nominations, which has led to an impressive list of UW-Madison-affiliated fellows. The complete list includes:

INVENTOR

INDUCTED

INVENTOR

INDUCTED

James Dahlberg Hector DeLuca Max Lagally James Dumesic Samuel Gellman Zhenqiang Ma William Murphy Denise Ney Ann Palmenberg

2012 2012 2012 2013 2014 2017 2018 2020 2020

Charles Mistretta Thomas Mackie Bulent Sarlioglu Brian Pogue Andreas Velten Jo Handelsman Susan Hagness Justin Williams

2020 2021 2021 2021 2021 2022 2022 2022

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WARF Accelerator UW innovations take center stage at Summerfest Tech Quick pitch event in Milwaukee featured technologies from three UW campuses

From better brain health to cutting-edge carbon capture, six top technologies in development at UW-Madison and other UW System campuses headlined WARF Innovation Day at Summerfest Tech.

The event brought together dozens of investors and university researchers for seven-minute pitch presentations on commercially promising technologies. Two panel discussions, one focusing on health care innovations and the other on engineering, rounded out the afternoon.

Lesli Mark, WARF Accelerator Associate

Greg Keenan, Senior Director of WARF Ventures and WARF Accelerator

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“WARF Accelerator advances technologies from the university lab to the market,” says Greg Keenan, Senior Director of WARF Ventures and WARF Accelerator. “We were pleased to showcase these world-class researchers from UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee and UW-Eau Claire at this event.”

Katie Rice, WARF Venture Relations Manager

The quick pitch lineup: Kip Ludwig, Ph.D. UW-Madison and NeuraWorx

Amani Gillette, Ph.D. Morgridge Institute for Research and SeLight

AkkeNeel Talsma, Ph.D., RN, FAAN UW-Milwaukee and MaternityMetrix

NeuraWorx: Enhancing Glymphatic Flow for Brain Health

SeLight: Illuminating Cell Metabolism During CAR T Cell Manufacturing

MaternityMetrix: The Prenatal Pocket Guide

Quentin Philippe, MBA Earth RepAIR

Elizabeth M. Glogowski, Ph.D. UW-Eau Claire

Patrick Sullivan, Ph.D. UW-Madison and Flux XII

Earth RepAIR: Energy Efficient CO2 Mineralisation with Cement Replacement as By-Product

Better Paint: Improved Polymer Dispersants for Architectural Coatings

Flux XII: Go with the Flow Batteries

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WARF Therapeutics As WARF Therapeutics begins its sixth year, the team is proud of the relationships they built across campus and the governance oversight processes they put in place to manage the science and the resources.

WARF Therapeutics continues to award grants for Stage 0 research directly to UW laboratories to help mature the basic science that will eventually support Stage 1-4 drug discovery collaborations. They also embraced a new activity – helping facilitate and secure federal funding. A grant application collaboration between WARF Therapeutics and the Carbone Cancer Center resulted in more than $27 million to support translational research across campus.

Drug discovery is a time-consuming, resource-intensive set of activities with protracted timelines. Having a robust pipeline requires a “deep bench,” which is how the team refers to programs in Stages 0-2. These programs have little to no licensing value at this time and go through a set of activities to de-risk them and identify those programs with the highest probability of success and most impact for meeting the needs of clinicians and their patients.

Stages 3-4 are where “potential value” is matured into “real value,” when clinical candidates are created, animal proof-of-concepts studies are performed, and partners get excited about licensing assets. These stages are the most resource intensive and as such, the team has built a new stage checkpoint wherein the Trustees that serve on the Governance Board will review the science and market opportunity and decide whether those programs are good investments for WARF. This shared responsibility is healthy for the program and akin to that of WARF Ventures.

The two lead programs, 384 and 735, were approved to transition to Stage 3 by the Scientific Advisory Board in October. These programs are examples of precision medicine approaches to treating cancer with the potential to selectively kill cancer cells while minimizing damage to normal healthy cells, thus improving patient outcomes. These novel drug modalities include both PROTAC and theranostic approaches, which WARF Therapeutics has unique knowledge of and capabilities that provide a competitive advantage in the biotech world.

WARF Ventures LEO CANCER CARE - a WARF Ventures startup story

With a patient-centered approach and a growing list of high-profile customers, Leo Cancer Care is transforming the field of radiation therapy.

“It’s amazing that we’re able to bring these life-saving treatments to the state of Wisconsin, to Madison, and it’s not just treating faceless patients for our team.

These are people in our local community,” says Stephen Towe, co-founder and CEO of the Middleton-based company.

Leo Cancer Care has developed an advanced system for delivering proton therapy, a form of targeted radiation treatment often used for pediatric patients or in complex cases. By keeping patients upright during treatment and turning them in place, rather than rotating massive machinery around them, the company aims to limit the dehumanizing effects of cancer treatment while also improving care quality.

“When you feel vulnerable, being upright and on your feet is just a much more empowered, prepared position to be in,” Towe said in an interview. “We’re strong believers in giving people their dignity back.

Even though they are going through cancer treatment, giving people the opportunity to really feel a part of that – and more importantly, in control of it – rather than being a passenger through their therapy.”

The business got its start in 2019, building on technologies created by Madison-area medical physicist Thomas “Rock” Mackie and others developed in Australia. Along with investing in the company through WARF Ventures, WARF played a key role in connecting Towe’s team with UW Health, one of Leo Cancer Care’s first customers.

According to Towe, affordability was one of the major factors for getting the proton therapy system into UW Health.

Other devices used for this form of treatment can be prohibitively expensive due to their size, he says, weighing up to hundreds of tons in some cases. Because the smaller Leo Cancer Care system slowly rotates the patient instead of heavy machinery, its customers end up paying substantially less.

“That’s really where our value proposition is most obvious … Our cost saving for proton therapy is more than $20 million per machine,” Towe says.

Plus, this approach delivers therapy with greater precision as patients’ organs don’t shift as much when they remain upright.

“What’s so exciting about this technology, and what’s so very rare from a health care perspective, is that we are reducing the cost at the same time as improving the quality of the treatment,” he says.

Since launching, Leo Cancer Care has sold its system to the McLaren Proton Therapy Center in Michigan and Stanford University’s medical facilities as well as UW-Madison through UW Health.

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already changing this mentality, and allowing not just Greg Keenan, Senior Director of WARF Accelerator and large medical centers to buy proton therapy, but we’re WARF Ventures, says the company is already gaining going to be making this technology available to significant ground. Through relationships with businesses that make up more than “WARF is very different in community-based hospitals too.”

65 percent of the proton therapy market – such as Hitachi, IBA and Mevion Medical their approach; they’ve got Towe praised the entire WARF team for the help they have provided during the company’s Systems – the company has broad access people that know what it development. He highlighted the “immensely to the global industry. takes to run businesses, supportive” role the organization played in connecting Leo Cancer Care with other Keenan also emphasized the importance and they also support in investors as well as skilled talent in the area. of the software controls involved in the every way they possibly Leo Cancer Care system. can,” says Stephen Towe, “WARF is very different in their approach; they’ve got people that know what it takes to “The design is so well-done, it looks so Leo Cancer Care CEO. run businesses, and they also support in every simple … but there’s a lot there in terms way they possibly can,” he says. “We’ve really of how you stabilize and compensate for “We’ve really benefited from that support.” benefited from that support.” patient movement during treatment,” he says. “And the level of accuracy that While the company also has offices in England, they’re able to achieve is remarkable.”

Leo Cancer Care’s headquarters and manufacturing operations are located in Middleton. Towe emphasized Fewer than 250 proton therapy treatment rooms the importance of being a Wisconsin-based business, currently exist globally, Towe notes. By reducing the cost and space required for delivering this care, he wants pointing to the state’s robust manufacturing infrastructure and reputation for excellence in to expand access to more patients around the world. medical physics thanks to UW-Madison.

“In 2022, we were responsible for the sale of more “It really is an amazing demonstration of what proton therapy machines than the entire industry – all Wisconsin is capable of,” he says. of the players combined – in 2021,” he says. “So we’re

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INTERSECTING for Excellence

WARF’s Investment Team consists of Alain Hung, Deputy Chief Investment Officer; Mike Wagner, Investment Director/Private Equity Manager; and Luann Soule, Investment Operations Analyst. While a good portion of their roles involves working with WARF’s Outsourced Chief Investment Officer, Northern Trust Investments, which oversees WARF’s $3 billion investment portfolio, increasingly the team is intersecting their expertise with other WARF colleagues to understand the opportunities that exist for startups and early-stage technologies in the WARF Licensing and Ventures portfolios. Those internal alliances build on years of intelligence and a broad range of ongoing market inputs. The collaborative efforts cross pollinate other opportunities for colleagues to intersect for excellence.

Alain Hung, Deputy Chief Investment Officer

WARF’s Internal Investment Committee WARF’s Internal Investment Committee evaluates new capital commitments that are made with private equity partners. New partnerships are reviewed by the committee and the group also considers whether continuing to invest in an existing partnership would be beneficial. Private equity has a long life, meaning you may not see a pay off until six to ten years after investing. Ongoing regular reviews of activities, however, are prudent.

The committee has long consisted of WARF CEO Erik Iverson, Alain Hung and Mike Wagner. This year WARF Chief Venture Officer, Mike Partsch, has joined the committee. The group meets regularly to consider new investment opportunities.

Hung’s invitation to Mike Partsch to join the committee was strategic. “We are able to question Mike in terms of more specifics or clarity on certain things he is looking at in the world of startups,” says Hung. “With Mike’s background, especially in ventures and startups, I thought it was important to include him on the committee. He can help us in the investment department, ask questions on those recommendations, that I think benefit the organization overall.”

Mike Wagner, Investment Director/Private Equity Manager

Collaboration Between WARF Ventures and WARF’s Investment Team How can WARF maximize the opportunity of using the market intelligence available through its investment team with the needs of the startups in the WARF Ventures portfolio? That is the primary question placed to a group of internal stakeholders. The answer is a new, frequent exchange that initiates collaborative information sharing.

Luann Soule, Investment Operations Analyst

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Mike Partsch

Greg Keenan

Katie Rice

The collaboration consists of the WARF Ventures team (Mike Partsch, Greg Keenan, Josh Carson, Katie Rice, Lesli Mark and Steven Andrzejewski), and members of WARF’s Investments team (Alain Hung and Mike Wagner). Each month, other WARF staff introduce the priority and high-potential technologies they are working on. Collectively, the group considers the market intelligence they have gathered on each technology and the likelihood of interested external investors.

“We have invited WARF Accelerator, WARF Therapeutics and members of the WARF Intellectual Property and Licensing team to present to us on a rotating basis,” says Hung. “We are doing this because we believe we can help across WARF departments. There's some market intelligence we have in the investment department, through reports and what we know through our private equity portfolio, that can be passed on to our colleagues.”

By having cross-departmental conversations on the technologies WARF is advancing, the hope is that some matchmaking can occur. “A big win could be if any of the general partners of the private equity portfolio, of which we have 30-40 partners, would be interested in taking a look at our WARF Ventures startups and eventually decide to invest in those startups,” says Hung. “Alternatively, they could provide information on other private equity venture funds that might be interested. That would be a big win.”

Ultimately, the market intelligence can also be of value to researchers WARF works with on campus in helping them understand the current needs of industry. The information could demonstrate how their work may be able to satisfy those market needs.

The internal dialogue also helps WARF colleagues make strategic decisions. As an example, WARF Ventures approached Hung to obtain market information on one of their portfolio startups focused on fluorescent-guided surgical procedures. The question was whether there was a demand for this highly specialized equipment. Hung was able to surface information on the market for this focused area, which ultimately helped the Ventures team recognize the real cost/benefit in making related investments.

Most university technology transfer offices do not have the benefit of working with investment colleagues. How valuable is having that intelligence internally to the WARF commercialization team?

“It’s tremendously important,” according to Greg Keenan, Senior Director of WARF Ventures and WARF Accelerator. “I think it is a true value add for WARF Ventures to have direct access to a private equity manager.

We obtain early insights into what other venture funds are doing and the types of deals they are making. It serves as a great resource and sounding board for current deal terms we are considering and financial structures for early stage investing. We know that input is valuable. “ Steven Andrzejewski

Lesli Mark

Joshua Carson

LICENSES

COOL

Bharat Biotech Innovations from UW-Madison virologists are enabling the creation of next-generation flu vaccines for emerging markets.

Bharat Biotech’s founder, Executive Chairman Krishna Ella, Ph.D.

Bharat Biotech International Limited, an Indian company, has licensed technologies for improved influenza vaccine viruses and production cells through an agreement with WARF. According to Jennifer Gottwald, Director of Licensing for WARF, this suite of technologies “allows for production of better, more effective” flu vaccines.

They were created by UW-Madison Profs. Yoshihiro Kawaoka and Gabriele Neumann, both experts in the field of vaccine research and development. In an interview, Neumann noted it’s not possible to “eradicate or even control” flu viruses in nature, given their ability to rapidly evolve into new forms and proliferate.

Using an approach called reverse genetics, Kawaoka and Neumann have been altering these viruses in hopes of improving vaccines to better protect human health.

“Once the regulatory agencies around the world decide that a new influenza vaccine should be generated and produced, the goal is to generate as many vaccine doses as possible in as little time as possible,” Neumann says.

She notes they have approached this challenge from two angles: modifying the virus so that it amplifies, or replicates, more effectively; and modifying the cells in which they replicate to support better virus growth.

“We accomplished the first goal by using reverse genetics to engineer vaccine viruses that amplify faster so that more vaccine doses can be generated in the same amount of time,” she explains. “To achieve the second goal, we also engineered cell lines to which human influenza viruses bind better, so that the viruses infect more efficiently, again boosting virus growth and the number of vaccine doses that can be generated.”

Under the legal agreement between Bharat Biotech and WARF, the company has exclusive rights to sell the flu vaccine in India and non-exclusive rights to sell it in low, lower-middle and upper-middle income countries, Gottwald explains.

“In talking to the company from the very start, they were very clear, ‘We can’t pay you a high royalty, but we are going to sell tons of this, it’s volume and small margins … There’s no reason, with our expertise, we can’t make a better flu vaccine for the developing world and do it in a cost structure that makes sense,’” she says.

The company regularly provides development reports to WARF as it progresses through clinical testing and other phases of its commercialization plan.

With more than two decades of experience in this area, Bharat Biotech has plenty of resources and expertise to move this process forward, Gottwald adds.

Jennifer Gottwald, WARF Director of Licensing

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“I think it’s safe to say they’re moving into the development and approval phase, and in the next four to six years … they hope to launch a product,” she says.

As the company works toward that goal, the UW technologies it has licensed will help it create a vaccine that’s better matched to circulating flu strains, according to WARF Senior Intellectual Property Manager Victoria Sutton.

One of the greatest challenges with vaccine development is that flu viruses are very good at changing to fit their growth environment, Sutton explains. They can adapt to the eggs in which they’re commonly grown for this purpose, she says, adding some theorize this helps explain why the flu vaccine is less effective in certain years.

Victoria Sutton, WARF Senior IP Manager

“Sometimes the virus has adapted to the growth environment, and adapted away from what humans needed it to be,” she says. “And so, if you can create a better cell line for growing these viruses, one that’s more reflective of the humans they’re going to go into eventually, then there’s less chance that they will adapt to something else entirely.”

Bharat Biotech’s founder, Executive Chairman Krishna Ella, is a graduate of UW-Madison and a 2022 recipient of UW-Madison’s most distinguished alumni award. Since he launched the business in 1996, it has developed a wide array of novel vaccines such as ROTAVAC, TYPBAR TCV, INCOVACC, JENVAC, etc., as well as other products, including India’s COVID-19 vaccine called COVAXIN. Ella established Bharat Biotech in a location outside of Hyderabad, India, and was instrumental in the start of Genome Valley, one of the largest biotechnology clusters in the world. The company has manufactured and supplied roughly nine billion doses of vaccines worldwide in a span of two decades.

“We are actively working towards developing a novel platform technology for flu vaccines, while addressing the shortcomings of existing technologies,” says Ella. “Our partnership with WARF is an important step in this direction and we are fully committed to the cause of providing access to safe and effective flu vaccines for LICs and MICs.” “We reaffirm our commitment to India, to lead innovation & develop novel vaccine technologies for combating infectious diseases & public health globally,” he adds.

Neumann says the partnership with Bharat Biotech has been “extremely gratifying,” praising the company’s focus on providing affordable vaccines in emerging markets. She says, “it’s a dream come true” to see research efforts translated into clinical use, noting that process is both time- and cost-intensive.

“As basic researchers, we typically lack the knowledge and financial means to navigate regulatory frameworks and perform all the testing that needs to be done before a product can be evaluated in humans,” she says. “Partnerships with industry are thus vital to develop novel approaches and products for potential use in humans.”

Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka, DVM, Ph.D.

Professor Gabriele Neumann, Ph.D.

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NeuraWorx

Kip Ludwig, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery and Co-Inventor of the NeuraWorx technology

Using technology created at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a company called NeuraWorx is developing an easy-to-use yet effective mouthguard device to stave off the progression of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.

During sleep, a complex physiological structure called the glymphatic system clears metabolic waste from the brain.

The NeuraWorx team is focused on improving that clearance process to slow the advancement of dementia symptoms, which are linked to a buildup of this waste material. The mouthguard is designed to be worn at night, stimulating cranial nerves to increase blood flow and cerebrospinal fluid flow while the user is sleeping.

Kip Ludwig, an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at UW-Madison and a co-inventor of the technology, says the arterial pulsations that drive this waste clearance tend to weaken as people age. In an interview, he explained neuromodulation devices – like the NeuraWorx mouthguard – can help restore that flow.

According to Ludwig, other approaches to treating dementia have focused on targeting one of the specific molecules that contribute to disease progression, such as misfolded proteins. But he says trying to address any one of those waste materials with a drug is “like playing Whac-A-Mole,” whereas improving the clearance process gets at the root of the problem.

“And so you can intervene earlier, and instead of being a symptomatic treatment, you may be able to, by restoring the brain back to its natural homeostasis for clearance, prevent you from ever getting Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease in the first place,” he says.

Chris Minar is the CEO and co-founder of the Minnesota-based company. He envisions the mouthguard as a preventive tool that users would put in right before going to bed.

“When you first go to sleep, within your first two to four hours, that’s when you’re in deep sleep or slow-wave sleep – also called non-REM sleep – that’s one part of the phase of sleep that the stimulation would be active,” he said, though he adds it could be set to provide stimulation for a full eight-hour period.

In the morning, users would remove the mouthguard and place it into a case that both cleans and charges the device.

“We’re going to try to make this as easy to use as possible,” he says.

The company is backed by multiple patents covering the key mechanism of action to boost cerebral arterial pulsation, as well as the actual product concept for delivering this stimulation.

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According to Minar, the device has the advantages of an implantable nerve stimulator, as it places the electrodes very close to the target nerves. But because it doesn’t have to be implanted within the user’s body, the clinical trials process can proceed more quickly, he says.

“It’s an incredibly safe product, so that the safety profile of this technology along with the advantages that you would typically get with an implantable, is a really cool concept,” he says.

Minar praises both Ludwig and co-inventor Justin Williams, a Professor of biomedical engineering at the university, for their innovative approach to creating this technology.

“I felt very confident that these guys were the scientists that could take what was already developed, and make it commercializable,” he says. “Both of them have really strong backgrounds in how to translate ideas into a commercial product.”

Justin Williams, Ph.D., Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Co-Inventor

The company has already shown the mechanism can be effective in rodents and pigs, with promising study results in non-human primates as well. Earlier this year, NeuraWorx submitted an application to begin its first human clinical studies.

Ludwig notes other devices that stimulate cranial nerves have been approved by the FDA for treating conditions such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, suggesting the NeuraWorx mouthguard will have an easier path to market.

“Because it’s noninvasive and safe, you can get human data very quickly to show whether this works or not … So being able to take a solution that is very easy to use, and has a very favorable safety profile, to test it in humans quickly is really part of the promise of this strategy,” Ludwig says.

The inventors have received funding for testing efforts through the WARF Accelerator program, which provides industry expertise and other resources to support the commercialization process. Minar says the support NeuraWorx has received from WARF has been invaluable.

“They are not only fantastic at supporting the company, but also the inventors, the technology … They’re giving us some strong financial support,” he says. “Even though the company is being set up outside of Wisconsin, they’re still leveraging their tools internally to deliver a lot of value from a commercial perspective.”

Cold Water Technologies A Verona-based startup called Cold Water Technologies wants to provide a better, more accessible option for treating itching and inflammation in pets.

Under the leadership of CEO and former UW-Madison researcher Jordan Sand, the business has developed its Happy Scratch nutraceutical using recycled pork product. The company earlier this year signed a license agreement with WARF covering the science behind the material and is currently exploring options for bringing it to market.

“I’m really excited to see this team of UW alumni putting this useful technology on the market to help people help their pets,” says Stephanie Whitehorse, WARF Director of IP, Physical Sciences.

According to Sand, existing competitor prescription drugs are “very expensive,” costing consumers between $2 and $4 per day. That’s in addition to the cost of seeing a veterinarian, which runs about $75 per visit on average, he says.

“Our price point is going to be more like $1 a day … So we really think we have an advantage there,” he says.

“All-natural, over the counter and less expensive. We’re hoping that will drive people to try our product.”

The technology behind Happy Scratch was developed at the university through efforts to find new ways to upcycle leftovers from meat processing. Sand says that while up to 70 percent of any given animal slaughtered is consumed by people, that leaves about 30 percent that holds relatively little value for these businesses.

“They don’t make a lot of money out of it. But really, that’s the part of the animal that keeps it alive, so we always thought there would be a lot of good, metabolically active components that existed within that milieu,” he says.

Ultimately, the research effort identified a material found within pig intestines that helped animals with dermatitis, or inflammation of the skin. After testing in mouse models, the scientists discovered it substantially reduced the itchiness associated with that condition in dogs as well.

“This is a great example of how a research project evolves and leads to a different end product than expected,” says Emily Bauer, WARF Director of Licensing. “When Jordan’s lab initiated this project, they were focused on livestock. What was originally a side effect became the first commercial application because of Jordan’s vision and determination.”

Co-founder Maria Dashek, who went to veterinary and graduate school at UW-Madison, has firsthand experience of the product’s effectiveness. She gives Happy Scratch to her own dog Kiba, a long-haired chihuahua mix, to relieve his itching.

While finishing up her Ph.D. program, Dashek moonlighted in pet vaccine clinics where she was frequently asked about options for treating itchy pets.

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“People care about their pets and want to provide them with good care. However, not everyone has funds available to be able to take their pet to a full-service veterinarian and get treatment,” she says. “I am hoping that Happy Scratch can provide support for those animals that these people love dearly, as they’re a part of their family.”

To make the Happy Scratch product, Cold Water Technologies takes the lining of the small intestine leftover from pork processing, pasteurizes it to eliminate any harmful pathogens, and spray dries it into a powdered form. It’s then packaged into one-gram packets, which are given to a pet with dermatitis once per day with food, Sand says.

“One of the bigger selling points for most pet owners is how palatable it is,” he says.

“The pets really, really like to eat it. In fact, most of the people who work on spray drying the material said their pets would just lick their pants when they got home …

They went completely nuts for it.”

Maria Dashek, DVM, Ph.D. Co-founder, Cold Water Technologies

Aside from tasting great, Sand explains the product is so effective because it helps to compensate for a common immune condition called selective IgA deficiency. Due to low levels of a protein called immunoglobulin A, animals with this condition are much more susceptible to dermatitis, recurrent infections and other health issues, he says.

“The mucosal layer of pig intestines has a lot of IgA in it. So basically, we’re replacing a missing part of the immune system,” he says. “We’re feeding it back to pets through the diet.”

Dashek touts the relationship between the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and researchers on campus that resulted in the intellectual property behind Happy Scratch getting patented.

“Being able to hold that IP has been really important, and allows us to have a product that we feel confident will be successful in the marketplace … As we were starting the company, WARF was very willing to work with us in licensing the patent, so that’s been really helpful,” she says.

Jordan Sand, Ph.D. Co-founder, Cold Water Technologies

Going forward, the business is analyzing various sales channels for Happy Scratch including direct-to-consumer and selling through vet clinics.

Dashek says the goal is to keep the company based in Wisconsin, adding she hopes “we’ll be able to continue to expand as our demand grows.”

Emily Bauer, WARF Director of Licensing

Stephanie Whitehorse, WARF Director of IP, Physical Sciences

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AND

PARTNERS

COLLABORATORS

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Welcoming Three New Trustees

Three leading executives in the fields of biomedical research, investments and corporate medical device innovation joined the WARF Board of Trustees in June 2023.

Asha Collins is currently the General Manager of the BioBanks Data Analysis Platforms for DNAnexus, a cloud-based biomedical and data management platform for health care and life sciences. Prior to joining DNAnexus, Collins was the U.S. head for country clinical operations at Genentech. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH), an independent corporate director for IDEXX Laboratories Inc., and an independent corporate director for LifeScience Logistics.

Collins holds a doctorate in cancer biology/microbiology from UW-Madison.

Paul Leff currently leads his family office opportunity fund, Warbasse67. Leff co-founded the New York City-based Perry Capital in 1988 and served as its Chief Investment Officer until his retirement in 2014. He is a founding member of the Wisconsin Naming Partners and served 12 years as a board member of the University of Wisconsin Foundation including as Vice Chair of its Investment Committee. Leff received a bachelor’s degree in finance and economics and a master’s degree in finance from UW-Madison.

Tom Tefft is retired from his position as Senior Vice President and the President of the Neuromodulation Business for Medtronic, a global health care technology company. Prior to that role he held numerous finance leadership roles including international assignments at Medtronic. He currently serves on the boards of directors for American Family Insurance, HistoSonics Inc., Nico Corporation and the Foundation of the American Nurses Association. Tefft earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from UW-Madison.

WARF welcomes Asha Collins, Paul Leff and Thomas Tefft to the Board of Trustees and looks forward to collaborating with each of them in the years to come.

Asha Collins, Ph.D.

Paul Leff, M.S.

Thomas Tefft, BBA

WINSLOW SARGEANT Chancellor’s Entrepreneurial Achievement Honoree Four outstanding innovators – including WARF Trustee Winslow Sargeant – received the 2023 Chancellor’s Entrepreneurial Achievement Awards and were recognized during the annual awards event on April 27. Established in 2011, the awards recognize individuals with ties to UW-Madison who further the Wisconsin Idea through outstanding accomplishments in entrepreneurship. Honorees have achieved entrepreneurial success that contributes to economic growth and social good, offers models for the UW community and inspires the campus culture of entrepreneurship.

“Entrepreneurship has a pivotal place in UW-Madison’s culture and our execution of the Wisconsin Idea,” says Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin. “This year, we celebrate how UW alumni, students and faculty shape the entrepreneurial ecosystem and drive the economy in our state and beyond. From a pair of student founders who created the country’s fastest-growing digital rewards and marketing platform; to an electrical engineering Ph.D. who built a far-reaching career as an entrepreneur, executive and small business advocate; to a lawyer whose teaching and service influenced a generation of entrepreneurs, these exceptional individuals are models for our campus, alumni, and community.”

WARF Trustee Winslow Sargeant, Ph.D., and UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, J.D., Ph.D.

Winslow L. Sargeant is an electrical engineer who has built an exceptional career with global reach, bridging entrepreneurship, technology, venture investing, small business advocacy, education and service. Sargeant is on the board of trustees for WARF, the Morgridge Institute for Research and Northeastern University; and he’s on the advisory council of Madison’s Center for Black Excellence and Culture. He is a Kauffman Fellow (Class 11) and visiting scholar with George Washington University.

As Senior Advisor for Globalization and Head of Capital Markets for Genaesis, Sargeant syndicates opportunities with unaffiliated third-party capital partners. As Board Chair of the International Council for Small Business, he educates government and nonprofit leaders on sustainable ecosystems for small businesses. He provides leadership to startups as CEO of Purple Team Technologies, an early-stage supply chain informatics company, and as board chair for several other companies. He was previously a managing director for Madison-based Venture Investors, before serving as Senate-confirmed Chief Counsel for Advocacy with the U.S. Small Business Administration. “[Winslow]’s easily seen as a black role model, but he’s a role model to engineers, period. To thought leaders, period.

To PhD recipients, period. Because of his level of integrity and his commitment to his scholarship,” said Alex Gee, CEO of the Center for Black Excellence and Culture.

The other honorees are: •

Wesley Schroll, CEO and Founder, Fetch

•

Tyler Kennedy, Senior Vice President-Operations and Co-Founder, Fetch

•

Anne Smith, Co-Founder, Law & Entrepreneurship Clinic, University of Wisconsin Law School

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With WARF Support, Gilson Family Fund advances UW-Madison’s Entrepreneurship Science Lab The Entrepreneurship Science Lab (ESLAB) is a UW-Madison lab located in the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and founded by Jon Eckhardt, Pyle Bascom Professor in Business Leadership at the Wisconsin School of Business. The lab uses data science to increase the prevalence of successful student entrepreneurship on campus, including among women and minorities, and works closely with other entrepreneurial initiatives on campus including WARF, the Wisconsin School of Business and Discovery to Product. WARF provides support for the ESLAB through the Gilson family fund.

The ESLAB team’s work “is really about opening up doors and opportunities for people across the university,” says Eckhardt. “I think what a lot of students don’t realize is that there’s a network of alumni, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and university programs that are eager to support those who want to go down the path of entrepreneurship.”

Jon Eckhardt, Ph.D., Pyle Bascom Professor in Business Leadership at the Wisconsin School of Business

Warren Gilson was a doctor and faculty member at UW-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health, as well as an entrepreneur who understood from the inside what physicians needed, inventing medical devices in the 1940s and 1950s like the cathode ray recorder and the electroencephalograph. Upon Gilson’s death in 2002, the family left funds to WARF to be used specifically to support entrepreneurship in line with the organization’s mission to support UW-Madison research.

“Supporting projects like the Entrepreneurship Science Lab is an excellent use of the Gilson funds,” says Erik Iverson. “Dr. Gilson got his start as a medical student, had a patent with WARF, and then left the university to go found a company.

He set a model example of how to use university research to solve real-world problems, and that’s WARF’s mission.”

Minah Park, ESLAB SOAR Project Lead and Ph.D. student

Dr. Warren E. Gilson with Nurse Hulda Gieschen in 1945 (Wisconsin Historical Society, WHI-41899)

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WARF Legislative and Congressional Visits In March, Kevin Walters visited Washington, D.C., to take part in the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s annual UW-Madison Day in D.C., as well as Fusion Day, a multi-institution collaboration to raise awareness in Congress about the importance and potential of fusion energy research. Kevin, together with UW-Madison Federal Relations, UW Engineering Physics and Realta Fusion CEO Kieran Furlong, visited six of the eight Congressional offices within the Wisconsin delegation.

In April, Kevin represented WARF at the UW-Madison Day at the State Capitol. The Alumni Association arranged visits with legislators and staff to discuss the university’s priorities in the upcoming state budget.

Kevin visited with Rep. Robyn Vining, who represents Wauwatosa and West Allis, and Rep. Alex Joers, whose district includes Middleton and Waunakee.

In October, UW Health coordinated a visit with State Senator Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Menasha). A registered nurse by profession, the Senator was touring the state to learn about health care facilities. During a meeting at the Wisconsin Institute for Medical Research, she heard presentations about pediatric oncology research and the UW Program for Advanced Cell Therapy, as well as WARF’s technology commercialization of biohealth inventions, past and present.

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Secretary of Energy touts biofuel’s role in clean energy transition Granholm, Baldwin tour GLBRC to learn about fundamental research on biofuels and bioproducts The nation’s top energy official visited UW-Madison in June to see how scientists at the federally funded Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center are working to turn plants into sustainable and economical replacements for fossil fuels and petrochemicals.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, accompanied by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, toured a fourth-floor laboratory in the Wisconsin Energy Institute, where senior scientist Trey Sato displayed a bundle of dried switchgrass, one of the perennial plants being studied as a source of low-carbon fuel.

Biofuels are a key component of the Biden administration’s plans to decarbonize the transportation sector and advance a sustainable, safe and secure bioeconomy.

Granholm said GLBRC’s biofuel research is laying the groundwork for technologies that will help move the nation toward a “net-zero economy.”

“I know firsthand how rich the Great Lakes region is with talented, driven problem-solvers, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison is home to an incredible group working to solve some of the biggest hurdles toward decarbonization,” Granholm said.

During the tour, Jennifer Gottwald, Director of Licensing, spoke about WARF’s role in supporting researchers on campus and commercializing technologies developed at the GLBRC. Jennifer says, “I started my conversation with Secretary Granholm and Senator Baldwin by saying they had just experienced a short bit of our life at WARF – talking with numerous UW researchers about the great science they are doing. We then transitioned into how WARF protects those advances to license to industry for real world application, a shared goal with the Department of Energy.”

Since its inception GLBRC has provided a training home for more than a thousand students and staff and yielded more than 1,750 scientific publications, 264 patent applications, 113 licenses or options and five startup companies.

Baldwin linked those discoveries to economic development in Wisconsin and beyond.

“If they become feasible for commercialization that is all about new jobs, new businesses and growth,” Baldwin said. “We heard a number of examples where research done in laboratories here on this campus and here in this building has created the opportunity for startups and employment.” *A version of this story was originally published on energy.wisc.edu.

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Collaborations and Collisions As the UpStart program celebrates 10 years, its founders and participants look back on how it all began and why it continues to redefine what successful entrepreneurship looks like.

When the crowd gathers in the H.F. DeLuca Forum at the Discovery Building this fall for the UpStart dinner — an annual gathering that grows every year — they’ll find many familiar faces in attendance. Perhaps they’ll see Urban League of Greater Madison CEO Ruben Anthony, or Madison Black Chamber of Commerce President Camille Carter — both graduates of the free, intensive, top-tier, several-week entrepreneurial program for women and people of color. Maybe they’ll spot Sabrina Madison, Founder of The Progress Center for Black Women, or Roxie Hentz, President of CEOs of Tomorrow — alumnae whose own entrepreneurship grew into developing future entrepreneurs. They might see alumni whose businesses have only grown, like James Bloodsaw Jr., whose JustVeggiez vegan eatery was named an SBA Wisconsin 2023 National Small Business Week Award winner. Even more likely, they’ll see that fellow cohort member who went through UpStart only to determine that their business idea was not the right one for now — which is considered just as much of a success story as any other.

“Obviously we want people to be successful and we want their businesses to thrive,” says Katie Rice, UpStart’s director since 2016. “But really our goal is to educate them on what it takes to launch and grow a business, and vet an idea from the beginning. To make decisions based on information, rather than fear.”

Since its pilot program launched in 2013 as a joint venture between the Wisconsin Alumni Research Association (WARF) and the City of Madison Department of Civil Rights, UpStart has welcomed 19 cohorts of 449 participants — 82% of them female and 53% Black, key demographics facing widely documented systemic barriers to entrepreneurship. UpStart has evolved over the past decade in ways it couldn’t have anticipated in the beginning, shaped by the entrepreneurs themselves while also adapting to unexpected events, like creating a virtual curriculum in response to a global pandemic. Recent additions include developing a coaching pilot Norm Davis, City of Madison program in partnership with UW–Madison’s Certified Professional Coach Department of Civil Rights Program, an innovative advertising partnership with Edible Madison Magazine, and “Taste of UpStart” gift boxes that highlight products from alumni. But it’s the core values and foundational basics of a curriculum, developed in partnership with the Small Business Development Center (SBDC), that have proven the most powerful over the years — and those have been there from the start.

“It really started with this idea that things like intellectual property, business ideas, business acumen are not the sole monopoly of any particular group,” says Department of Civil Rights leader Norm Davis. “That if provided with training, resources and networks, anyone in our community could really thrive in their business.”

INTENTIONAL BEGINNINGS UpStart was born out of the mission to provide education and access, similar to the intent behind the creation of the Discovery Building — to provide a place that would bridge campus and the wider community, especially for people who might not have found access before. These objectives stem from the Wisconsin Idea, the general principle that education should influence people’s lives beyond the boundaries of the classroom.

Katie Rice, UpStart Director

“WARF and the Department of Civil Rights wanted to cultivate and strengthen a more diverse entrepreneurial ecosystem in the city of Madison and the larger state of Wisconsin,” Rice says, “so what better place to hold this class than a place intended to be at the apex of the community and campus, the Discovery Building?”

Zach Ellis came to work for WARF in 2011, just before the Discovery Building was built. As a person of color with a strong entrepreneurial background, he was intrigued by the conversations underway about how WARF could move beyond just supporting the university to ensure the Discovery Building served as a welcoming place for everyone. He became the first director of UpStart, curating a 12-person pilot cohort by reaching out to places like Umoja Magazine, the Latino Chamber of Commerce and the Black Chamber of Commerce.

“There was a lot of intentional effort put into making that first cohort really Zach Ellis, South Loop Ventures engaged, really sort of handpicked, to give them a white glove experience so that they could then turn around and be advocates for the program,” Ellis says. That awareness that the ecosystem they envisioned would ideally build on itself drove many decisions in the beginning about how to roll out the welcome mat. Founders accounted for things like validated parking and catered dinner, because classes were held in the evenings after participants had already worked long days and often had family at home, or second jobs.

Right away, the program flourished and the need was clear. The second cohort doubled and there were more applicants than available spots — a situation that continues to this day — as organizers prioritized keeping cohort size small enough to give participants intense personalized instruction. Most importantly, UpStart organizers worked to demystify and redefine successful entrepreneurship. They were clear that the program’s success would be measured by education, access and networking instead of typical metrics like whether a business launches or gets funded.

“It’s a win for us not just to have companies created, but also to realize that’s potentially not a good business idea,” says Rafael Diaz, who took over for Ellis as director in 2014. Like Ellis, Diaz was immediately drawn to the idea that UpStart could help people understand that the university and the Discovery Building were here for everyone. As he worked to communicate this to applicants, he could see how surprised they were. “We were saying, ‘This is here for you, this is a public university,’ and people said, ‘What?’” Diaz recalls, adding that teaching business acumen is a huge value to people who might not readily access it, but ensuring the Wisconsin Idea is carried out in practice benefits everyone.

Rafael Diaz, WARF Licensing Manager

“People are proud of being part of UpStart,” Diaz says. “Having access, having the possibility to have these resources, it’s very powerful.”

SUCCESS IN REAL TIME UpStart’s top-tier curriculum was developed by the SBDC’s Michelle Somes-Booher. It covers a range of core basics such as business planning, financial readiness and marketing strategies.

“We meet people where they’re at,” Somes-Booher says. “If you just want to learn some principles of best practices, this class is appropriate. If you’ve tested your idea already and are figuring out how to scale larger, this class is still appropriate.”

Michelle Somes-Booher, SBDC

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Most importantly, Somes-Booher says, UpStart provides participants with a network of resources. “One of the cool things about UpStart is that once you’re done, you’re not done,” she says.

That network has been the greatest takeaway for Sara Parthasarathy of Flavor Temptations, a company she started as a side project while still working a corporate job. Her fledgling business was offering two or three spice kits when she enrolled in the first-ever UpStart cohort in 2013. “I think UpStart was one of the very first things that really helped me connect with all of the people that have been helping me with my business all along,” says Parthasarathy, who now has more than a dozen spice kits available online and in area grocery stores.

“What I learned is that it was much bigger than just creating a product.”

Parthasarathy soaked up skills like a sponge, absorbing financial awareness that empowered her as she approached banks for funding. She also met the person who became her mentor and discovered the Doyenne Group network. And she still uses the curriculum’s Business Model Canvas — a more accessible, practical alternative to a formal business plan — some 10 years later. “It’s always been a good tool for me,” she says. “I just take it out and say, ‘OK, things have changed, I have a new target customer, how does this impact the rest?’”

Saran Ouk also found the Business Model Canvas to be one of the most beneficial tools of the UpStart program, particularly because she ended up vetting several ideas. Ouk was working full-time at a credit union and had started a nonprofit professional development program for young adults Sara Parthasarathy, Flavor Temptations (ConNEXTions) when she came into the 2018 fall cohort of UpStart to pursue a third idea. Not only did the business planning tool help her vet that idea and strengthen her existing nonprofit, things took a twist during her program: As her classmates voiced concern during the financial curriculum about their personal situations, Ouk found herself drawing on her own professional skills to help them — which led to her developing a fourth idea to provide personal financial consulting that became a business, Dream Bigger. Ouk had to shutter Dream Bigger when she took a job providing a similar service with the city of Madison’s economic development division, but still credits UpStart for making business planning less intimidating for the populations she works with. “I think the myth is that you have to have this full-blown business plan and then people freak out because they don’t have one,” Ouk says. “But UpStart shows you can get started with a smaller version and then you gain the confidence of writing a full-blown plan if you need it.”

CONFIDENCE BOOSTER Gaining confidence was one of the key takeaways for James Bloodsaw, who describes himself as shy. After starting JustVeggiez in 2018, he’d enrolled in the first business classes of his life, including UpStart. “I’d been cooking for like 30 years, so I knew the cooking part, but I didn’t know anything about the business part,” he says. That he could use the law library to gain free access to targeted demographics blew his mind, but he also needed the paradigm shift that required embracing self-promotion to make that marketing stick, an UpStart lesson he vividly remembers. “I learned I had to become a salesman, because who else was going to sell the business for me?” he says. “I use that all the time now, if I get an interview or anything. You have to be able to get the word out about your business, so you have to sell yourself.” Five years later, Bloodsaw says, he’s still drawing on the program. “I email Katie Rice all the time, or ask questions in the UpStart Facebook group, or just look through the binder we got,” he says. “Anyone who is trying to start up a business needs to go through this program, that’s my thing. It’s a mandatory program.”

James Bloodsaw, JustVeggiez

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Keena Atkinson, R’oujie Wellness

That confidence also proved revolutionary for Keena Atkinson. She was working in corporate America but couldn’t stop dreaming of this idea to start her own business, so she entered UpStart in 2018 — but not without reservations. She’d also taken Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corporation (WWBIC) classes and worried she’d already had her chance. “In my own limiting belief, I thought that since I’d taken one business class and graduated from it, I should not take up space in another business class,” Atkinson says. “I was attracted to learning but I didn’t feel worthy.” Of all the skills, tools and networking resources Atkinson gleaned from UpStart, it was that — becoming aware of her limiting beliefs and gaining the confidence to take up space — that had the biggest impact, even when her original business idea didn’t pan out. After vetting it thoroughly in the program, she ended up starting a different company, R’oujie Wellness, teaching yoga and dance classes virtually.

She returned to UpStart resources during the pandemic and came through it thriving — now she has a national audience. “To this day I can say word for word the things that they said in class that they taught me, kept me lifted, and motivated and encouraged me to be brave and courageous when doing things for my business,” she says. “I graduated in 2018 and I’m still reaching for UpStart, still connecting with them.”

Those connections — or, as Katie Rice calls them, “collaborations and collisions” — are what the UpStart program is all about. That’s why the annual dinner — which this year will bring 20 cohorts into one giant, thriving, evolving ecosystem — is so important. Past year’s events have even led to new ventures.

“UpStart is all about building a supportive and sustainable community of partners,” says Rice. “We’re proud to be a trusted source for information and resources, and we seek every opportunity to build valuable connections for these amazing entrepreneurs.”

Saran Ouk (first row, left), City of Madison Office of Business Resources, with vendors from Culture Collectives

Erik Iverson joins Global Health Institute Trip to India Lora Klenke, International Alumni Relations, Wisconsin Foundation & Alumni Association; Krishna Ella, Bharat Biotech; Rajesh Gokhale, Department of Biotechnology, Government of India; S. Chandrasekhar, Department of Science & Technology, Government of India; Himanshu Pathak, Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) and Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR); Jorge Osorio, Global Health Institute, UW-Madison; Erik Iverson, WARF In February, WARF CEO Erik Iverson joined a group of UW luminaries on a trip to New Delhi, India. The trip was organized by the UW Global Health Institute and the Wisconsin Alumni Association and aimed to draw connections between UW alumni living in India and UW research and other opportunities at UW. During the trip, the UW-Madison Global Health Institute and the Ella Foundation, founded by alumnus Krishna Ella and Suchitra Ella, signed a bilateral agreement in New Delhi to establish the first ever “UW-Madison One Health Center” in Bangalore, India. The UW-Madison One Health Center will advance the development and production of new vaccines for India. Furthermore, the partnership will enable collaboration across disciplines and geographic boundaries, provide Indian students and researchers access to UW expertise and training, and build research capacity in India.

Krishna Ella, Ella Foundation, and Jorge Osorio of the UW Global Health Institute.

The center is expected to be operational by end of 2023 and was announced at the UW-Madison Badger Utsav, “Meet Badgers Who Are Building a Better World,” in New Delhi.

During the New Delhi event, Erik shared how WARF supports scientific research within the UW-Madison community by providing financial support, actively managing assets, and moving innovations to the marketplace for a financial return and global impact. “I am delighted to participate in the Badger Utsav to share stories of the work WARF is involved in with international partners,” said Erik. “Badger Utsav is an important event for all who seek to build bridges between the University of Wisconsin and industry and government in India.”

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In Search of PA RT N E R S H I P S A UW graduate student laid the foundation that led UW leaders Brian Fox, Chair of Biochemistry, and Jorge Osorio, Director of the Global Health Institute, to join WARF CEO Erik Iverson to explore joint academic and research opportunities in South Africa

Liz Appelt

As the pandemic rolled out in 2020, Liz Appelt, a University of Wisconsin-Madison chemical and biological engineering doctoral candidate, was looking for a practicum experience. She was part of the UW biotechnology training grant, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), that gives trainees the opportunity to select an internship within industry.

In considering her options, Appelt recalled a presentation in her biotechnology seminar by Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation CEO Erik Iverson, who spoke about a biotech company he co-founded in South Africa. After contacting Iverson to learn more, Appelt was able to organize an internship at Afrigen Biologics Vaccines, a Cape Town, South Africa-based biotech company. Afrigen performs product development, bulk manufacturing and supply and distribution of key biologics to address unmet health care needs. It also holds the distinction of being the first biotech startup on the African continent, and recent designee as the hub of mRNA vaccines for Africa by the World Health Organization (WHO).

More Than an Internship Appelt reached Cape Town in June 2022. The WHO had just provided the designation and funding to Afrigen to be the hub of an international consortium of organizations making the COVID vaccine more accessible.

“When they received the WHO designation, they had to do a rapid ramp up to become a GMP (good manufacturing practice) facility for manufacturing these vaccines,” says Appelt. “They also had to kind of reinvent the mRNA vaccine and, in parallel, build up the manufacturing side of things. I was there when they were doing the research and development along with building the manufacturing platform.“ At Afrigen, Appelt was more than a visiting scholar. She brought experience from working with a California biotech in analytical development, which was precisely what Afrigen needed with their new designation. “I think I provided expertise that the people on the Afrigen team didn’t have, just because they weren’t coming from an analytical background like I was,” says Appelt. “I think, hopefully, I was helpful.”

Liz Appelt at Afrigen

Appelt was able to participate in physically getting the GMP facility ready and eventually took part in the visits from the South African Health Authority and the WHO as they toured the facility checking for readiness in vaccine development. It was the kind of transformative experience that only the combination of a world health crisis and excellent networking can provide.

“Global health has always been really important to me,” says Appelt. “I’m so interested in global health and collaborative science and being on-site at Afrigen was the absolute perfect opportunity for me. The WHO designation made Afrigen a training site for all the other partner organizations in the consortium. There were people from all over the world coming to Afrigen.

The experience reinforced for me the necessity of collaboration.”

Liz Appelt and her teammates at Afrigen.

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Jorge Osorio; Bill Checovich, Illumina; Linda-Gail Bekker, Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine; Erik Iverson; Brian Fox

Appelt returned from her experience at Afrigen in September 2022 and shared her story with Biochemistry Department Chair Brian Fox and other students in the biotechnology program. It prompted Fox to consider how to develop a regular relationship with Afrigen and other related organizations in South Africa to facilitate more opportunities for UW students.

Afrigen’s Wisconsin ties start with Erik Iverson, who co-founded Afrigen before joining WARF. The successful startup now employs 150 people. Now, with Appelt’s experience working with Afrigen, the ties expand into UW’s biotechnology training program as well.

Introducing Friends in the Name of Improving the World As someone who is quick to draw connections between potential partners, in spring 2023 Iverson suggested to Fox a trip to South Africa to meet the principals at Afrigen as well as other research university colleagues in the area. Joining Fox and Iverson on the trip was Professor Jorge Osorio, Director of the UW Global Health Institute (GHI). An entrepreneur, Osorio is also CEO of VaxThera, a vaccine institute based in Columbia. He has patented the vaccines developed from his research through WARF.

Richard Gordon, South African Medical Research Council; Erik Iverson; Petro Terblanche, Afrigen Biologics; Jorge Osorio; Bill Checovich, Illumina; and Brian Fox at Afrigen.

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“I tend to go on these trips with a sense of, ‘let’s find out what’s possible,’” says Iverson. “There’s something there because I know the area well enough. It’s not a cold call, but it is, ‘we are going to go down there, we’re going to have conversations about how we can work together.’”

The trip took place in April and within two and a half days, a proposed joint Ph.D. program was conceived between UW Biochemistry and Stellenbosch University, both public universities seeking exchange experiences for their students and faculty.

In comparing notes, the new friends came to understand that joint Ph.D. programs between Stellenbosch University and Oxford as well as universities in Germany were already developed.

The Wisconsin crew asked, “Can you try the same with UW?” The question was met with enthusiastic willingness to work out the details.

Visiting the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation.

“I was utterly impressed with the people and research we were introduced to in South Africa,” says Brian Fox. “There is a high level of technological sophistication there. Meeting the people and seeing firsthand their world class research capabilities changed my whole view of what the interactions could be between UW-Madison and South African universities. It is remarkable to think of an international network. Creating a shared vision and training where people can go back and forth between institutions would be terrific.”

The trip also included a visit to the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation and HIV clinic, where Osorio immediately saw opportunities for GHI to integrate their One Health Institute.

”The foundation of GHI is embracing a global health ethic that fosters deeper understanding of the complex determinants of health and disease for people, animals and ecosystems,” says Osorio. “Our relationship with WARF and Erik positively enhances our vision to proactively link UW-Madison’s multidisciplinary talent and expertise with academia, government, NGOs, health officials and industry partners. With opportunities to meet, learn and collaborate with organizations like Afrigen and the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation, GHI is able to develop and facilitate more global health programs and initiatives for UW undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students, and expand our network for researchers to exchange health information and create innovative solutions to global health challenges.”

Iverson returned to Madison reminded that the world’s a pretty small place. “Phenomenal science and product development are happening everywhere, and the university and WARF have a role to play in that,” he says. “Brian and Jorge learned that joint programs can be created while meeting new friends and collaboratively hatching fresh ideas thousands of miles from home. For any of us, it’s just a matter of getting out and meeting people and exploring the possibilities. I know this because it happened, and we were on the ground for just two and a half days.”

Iverson goes on to encourage, “If you think WARF can help open a door for you – whether it is your department, your lab or on behalf of your students, please reach out and let us know. We love introducing friends to one another.”

Liz Appelt is nearing completion of her Ph.D. at UW and reflecting on the value new friends and scientific connections can bring.

“I can’t endorse these kind of collaborative partnerships enough,” says Appelt. “So much of R&D is niche, and there is so much to be gained by meeting with a collaborator face-to-face. I met some amazing scientists and engineers in South Africa. I learned a lot from them, and I hope they learned a lot from me. I feel like we could all benefit globally from just being more open to these types of collaborations moving forward.”

The UW/WARF team meeting with Nadia Carstens and Craig Kinnear, both representing the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) Genomics Centre.

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WARF and UW

Share Dinner and Discussion with Friends at the Japanese Consulate On March 24, Erik Iverson was part of a group invited to share dinner and discussion at the Japanese Consulate offices in Chicago. Consul-General Hiroshi Tajima hosted the group from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Madison’s Andrew Seaborg, a Partner at The Capital Group, organized the event.

Mutually beneficial opportunities for the state and region were discussed within the group, which included Hiroyuki Nemoto, Chief Executive Director of JETRO; Ryohei Tsuji, Executive Corporate Officer at Kikkoman Corporation and President & COO of Kikkoman Foods; Tsutomu Shibata, Director of the Japan Information Center; Tomoyuki Hasegawa, President & CEO of FUJIFILM Cellular Dynamics; and Rod Schrader, Chair & CEO of Komatsu North America.

In addition to Iverson, UW colleagues included Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin and College of Engineering Dean Ian Robertson. Also attending were Sam Rikkers, Deputy Secretary & COO, and Fanfu Li, International Business Director, both of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC).

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WARF Staff on the

WARF staff tour new UW Meat Science Lab

MOVE

Emily Bauer, Jennifer Gottwald, Lisa Murray and Kevin Walters attended the annual WiSys Spark Symposium, organized by our partners at WiSys at UW-Oshkosh this past summer. The WARF staff each led discussions as part of a panel on Pain Points in Sustainable Agriculture. Jessica Silvaggi, President of UW-Milwaukee Research Foundation, and Adhira Sunkara and Arjun Sanga from WiSys also took part in the panel.

AUTM conferences returned in full force in 2023 and WARF staff were there to network and share their expertise.

Stephanie Adamany, Jennifer Gottwald, Justin Anderson, Mark Staudt and Kevin Walters presented at panel sessions, roundtables and committee meetings at the AUTM Annual Meeting in Austin last February. Jennifer, Mark and Kevin also spoke at the AUTM Central Region Meeting in Kansas City over the summer. And Mark and Justin served on regional planning committees throughout the year.

In March, Jennifer Gottwald attended the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. Jennifer was part of a group representing the Department of Energy’s four Bioenergy Research Centers, including the Great Lakes Bioenergy Center on the UW campus.

WARF Public Affairs Analyst Kevin Walters, WARF Director of Licensing Jennifer Gottwald and WiSys Director of Strategy and Innovative Ventures Adhira Sunkara

In June, John Nagel, Rafael Diaz, Antonio Rauti, Josh Carson and Erik Iverson attended the BIO conference in Boston. The group connected with dozens of industry representatives and shared information about UW-Madison’s therapeutic and drug delivery innovations, drug development programs at WARF Therapeutics, co-funding/ co-development options with WARF Accelerator and startup opportunities with WARF Ventures.

WARF Licensing Analyst Antonio Rauti

WARF Licensing Manager Rafael Diaz Also, in June, members of the Accelerator, Ventures and IP/Licensing teams held their end of the fiscal year meeting at the UW Meat Science and Animal Biologics Discovery Building. Prior to the meeting, the group toured the Meat Science Lab.

In October, Jennifer Gottwald and Brian Frushour attended a STRAP industry partner meeting in Houghton, Michigan. STRAP (solvent-targeted recovery and precipitation) is a recycling technology developed by chemical engineer George Huber with help from collaborators at UW-Madison and Michigan Tech. It allows multi-layer films and mixed plastic waste to be recycled back into their constituent polymers in near virgin form. WARF has filed two patents on the technology, and WARF Accelerator has supported the construction of a pilot system at Michigan Tech to scale up the process.

During the meeting, Jennifer and Brian were able to see the progress on the pilot system (a 3D-printed model of the final system was also displayed) and discussed paths forward with the industry partners. Attendees included representatives from Amcor, Braskem, Sabic, Heritage Group and CPM, as well as researchers from both universities.

The graduate student researchers who serve as WARF Ambassadors expanded their engagement with campus this year. They staffed tables at symposia and seminars, held a Trivia Night event, and hosted a series called Careers & Beers for scientists considering careers outside of the academy.

Groups of Ambassadors also met regularly to assist with WARF technology commercialization. The Diversity in Disclosures Group studied ways to better reach underrepresented faculty, the Tech Writing Group wrote marketing summaries of WARF inventions, and the Technology Scouting Group researched select WARF IP to mine commercial insights.

3D-printed model of the STRAP system

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WARF Director of Licensing Jennifer Gottwald and colleagues at the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C.

WARF staff tour the UW Meat Science and Animal Biologics Discovery Building

PROGRAMMING

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WARF’s Experience in Community Outreach Becomes Major Gift to the University Since 2010, WARF has sponsored programming and events that celebrate science and creativity for campus and community members. The programs and events were developed and executed

by WARF staff in partnership with a strong team at the Morgridge Institute for Research, who brought deep expertise in scientific educational outreach in the K-12 community as well as with more general community audiences. These WARF and Morgridge Institute teams partnered regularly with campus and community collaborators.

In FY23 WARF gifted its expertise to UW-Madison, subsidizing the transfer of these expert staff into key and strategically selected departments within the university. The gift intends to facilitate the university’s outreach mission, advance The Wisconsin Idea, and allow community audiences to engage with the premier research and scientific discovery at the university.

Dozens of volunteers, presenters, sponsors and staff at the 2023 Wisconsin Science Festival Discovery Expo

Programs that made the transition, some of which are now run in partnership between UW-Madison and the Morgridge Institute, include Entrepreneurons, Crossroads of Ideas, SoundWaves, Saturday Science and the annual statewide Wisconsin Science Festival.

It is anticipated that most of these programs, and support for a wide range of events, will continue to be hosted in the Town Center in the Discovery Building as they have over many years.

ONE WARF GIVES BACK ONE

GIVES BACK

CELEBRATING COMMUNITY GIVING

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WARF staff and their families devote hundreds of hours to support and strengthen our community. From food banks to blood drives, citizen science to school supplies, our staff come together to make a difference.