Mass High Tech - October 23, 2007

Deshpande Center doles out $1.03M in latest grants
Mass High Tech

The Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT reports it has awarded $1.03 million to 10 MIT-associated researchers and research teams.

The Deshpande Center hands out awards each fall and spring to fund early stage research in a number of industries such as materials science and biotechnology. Last spring, the center awarded $628,000 to seven research teams.

The Deshpande Center's fall 2007 grant recipients are:

• A123 Systems Inc. founder Yet-Ming Chiang, for a portable, continuous drug delivery device.
  
  
• Utkan Demirci from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology for a lymphocyte-counting microchip for on-site HIV virus monitoring.
  
  
• Elazer Edelman, professor, for a means of safely administering peri-operative drugs for heart failure patients.
  
  
• Gerald Fink, professor of biology and a member of the Whitehead Institute, for a compound to enhance immune stimulation.
  
  
• Carol Livermore, an assistant professor, and Timothy Havel, principal research scientist, for a mechanical energy storage system using carbon nanotubes.
  
  
• Keith Nelson, professor of chemistry, for a power source for terahertz imaging used for explosive detection and other applications.
  
  
• Donald Sadoway, professor, for a high-amperage energy storage device for industrial settings.
  
  
• Henry Smith, professor, and Rajesh Menon, a research engineer, for an absorbance modulation technique enabling high-resolution nanoscale imaging for faster, more flexible analysis of nanostructures.
  
  
• Jefferson Tester, H.P. Meissner Professor of Chemical Engineering, for a technology that produces propane from biomass material.
  
  
• Ioannis Yannas, a professor, and François Berthiaume, a lecturer in mechanical engineering, for a drug delivery system to enhance healing of wounds and burns.
  

The Deshpande Center began funding research in 2002. The center is the result of a $20 million gift from Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande, co-founder and chairman of Chelmsford-based Sycamore Networks Inc., along with his wife Jaishree. All told, the center has funded 61 MIT research projects with $7 million in grants, according to MIT officials.

Nine companies have spun out of the center and collectively raised more than $40 million in venture funding.