HSC researcher selected to participate in prestigious accelerator

Texas Medical Center Innovation recently announced an HSC team’s research on breast cancer therapeutics was selected to be a part of the health care accelerator’s 2023 Accelerator for Cancer Therapeutics.

The HSC team, led by School of Biomedical Sciences postdoctoral associate Amit Tripathi, was one of 21 researchers and companies to have been selected to join this year’s iteration of the accelerator. Dr. William Jordan, Dr. Robert McClain and Dr. Jamboor Vishwanatha also worked on the project.

The TMCi Accelerator for HealthTech cohort was selected after a diligence boot camp held in November 2022.

Launched in 2021, the nine-month program – funded by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and partnered with the Gulf Coast Consortia and the University of Texas Medical Branch — supports investigators and early-stage biotechnology companies spearheading groundbreaking work in the area of cancer therapeutics.

Since its launch, 45 participants have gone through the accelerator program. Collectively, the entrepreneurs have raised more than $90M in funding (from NIH, CPIRT, and venture capital) and three projects are in the clinic. 2023 cohort participants are focused on a wide range of therapeutic assets, including small molecule (38%), antibody (28%), peptide/protein (19%), cell therapy (14%) and other (15%). The 2023 cohort kicked off its nine-month program in January.