News from the McGrath Lab

Bone infection, while relatively rare, can be debilitating and potentially fatal. In recent years, researchers in the Center for Musculoskeletal Research at the University of Rochester Medical Center have made several discoveries that position them to advance new treatments and possible cures for bone infections. Now, a nearly $6 million, 5 year award from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Disease at the National Institutes of Health, will allow the group to create a new multidisciplinary research program devoted to studying bone infections.

The CMSR has been among the top five NIH-funded orthopaedic research centers in the nation for over ten years, and Edward Schwarz, Ph.D., Burton Professor of Orthopaedics and director of the CMSR, has been the top NIH-funded orthopaedic researcher in the nation three years running. This new grant, awarded to Schwarz and throng of researchers from across the University of Rochester and beyond, brings the center's total forecasted earnings for 2017 to $28 million.

Of the millions of Americans who have joint replacement surgeries each year, less than five percent come away with an infection. But this minority of patients must endure a long and difficult road to recovery, if they recover at all. The vast majority of these infections are caused by a bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus, including the dreaded methicillin-resistant strain (MRSA), which causes sepsis and death in 13 percent of infected patients.

Patients who survive these infections face multiple surgeries to remove infected tissue, months of strong antibiotic treatments, and a high likelihood of re-infection. For a long time, researchers have been working to understand how this bacteria evades treatment and Schwarz believes he has figured out.

Together with Karen Bentley, director of the Electron Microscopy Core at URMC, Schwarz showed that the bacteria can crawl deep into tiny channels in bones, possibly taking shelter there and later emerging to re-establish an infection. Though S. aureus was originally thought to be incapable of movement, Bentley and Schwarz, in collaboration with James McGrath, Ph.D., professor of Biomedical Engineering at URMC, and his spin-off company, SiMPore Inc., showed that this bacteria can migrate through tiny pores in membranes in the lab.

This new grant will allow Schwarz and Hani A. Awad, Ph.D., professor of Biomedical Engineering and Orthopaedics in the CMSR, to investigate exactly how S. aureus gets into bone and develop new treatments that target those mechanisms. Microbiologists Steven Gill, Ph.D., and Paul Dunman, Ph.D., in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, will help the team develop new antibiotics to inhibit bone infection, which will be 3D printed into spacers that replace infected joint implants. Delivering the antibiotic at the site of infection may save patients' limbs and lives.

Schwarz has also been working to understand what makes certain patients more susceptible to S. aureus infections than others, including why some patients recover relatively easily, while others die.

"Death following surgical site infection is not random," said Schwarz. "By studying patient immune responses to this bacteria, we might be able to predict who will be fine and who will need extra medical attention."

S. aureus can also become resistant to antibiotics, making it extremely deadly and difficult to eradicate. Better understanding patients' immune reactions to the bacteria may provide new approaches to defeating it.

In an international study of more than 300 patients with infected total joint replacements, Schwarz and his team including John Daiss, Ph.D., and Chao Xie, M.D., in the CMSR, found that patients fared well if their immune systems attacked a certain S. aureus protein, and poorly if they attacked another. Patients who produced antibodies attacking autolysin, a protein important for cell division, were protected. Those who produced antibodies against a family of iron sensing determinant (Isd) proteins, which help S. aureus sap nutrients from its host, were more likely to experience sepsis and even die.

It is unclear why antibodies that attack Isd proteins are bad for patients, and Schwarz is determined to use this new funding to figure it out. He will also analyze the full complement of antibodies produced by patients infected with several types of staph bacteria to see if there are more good- and bad-cop antibodies that could help inform new treatments.

The Clinical Research Core of this program will be run by Stephen L. Kates, M.D., at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Nanoporous Nitride nanomembrane used as
a pre-filter for a DNA biosensor.

Professor Jim McGrath has received National Institutes of Health funding (R21) for his research project, “Solid-State Nanopores integrated with Nanoporous Membranes for enhanced Single-Molecule Counting of low-abundance Biomarkers,” in collaboration with the University of Ottawa.

This project aims to create robust biosensors by combining a University of Ottawa technology for the electrical detection of individual DNA molecules with University of Rochester’s nanomembrane technology. The porous nanomembranes serve as protective filters for the DNA sensors and prevent large molecules and debris from reaching the biosensor while still allowing the unobstructed passage of DNA. The technology will be used in a strategy in which designer DNA ‘barcodes’ serve as amplified surrogates for low abundance biomarkers present in biological fluids.

Figure: Concept of a compact extracorporeal dialysis
system enabled by silicon nanomembranes

A collaborative project including Rochester Institute of Technology, SiMPore, Inc., and BME Professor Jim McGrath titled, “Development of Ultrathin Nanomembranes for Home-based Hemodialysis,” has received National Science Foundation funding. This collaboration between University of Rochester, RIT, and SiMPore Inc. continues the development large area silicon nanomembranes for wearable hemodialysis. The high efficiency of the ultrathin nanomembranes enables new form factors for hemodialysis that can dramatically improve both quality of life and health outcomes for those with end stage renal failure.

Blood Cells by Scanning Electron Microscope

“You see some phenomenal things under a scanning electron microscope,” says Kilean Lucas.

Such as the image above, which the PhD student took of a single human red blood cell, captured among several white blood cells on a silicon nanomembrane developed in the lab of Lucas’ advisor, James McGrath, professor of biomedical engineering.

Lucas is studying how the ability of these nanomembranes to separate and filter out particles that differ by mere microns in size could lead to medical breakthroughs. For example, immature red blood cells separated from mature red blood cells could be harvested and seeded into bioreactors as a new way to replenish blood banks.

Or all the white blood cells could be filtered out from a patient’s blood sample. There are many forms of white blood cells, each responding in different ways to different threats. The proportion of each type of white blood cell in a given sample could be used to give a rough diagnosis of the body’s response to disease.

Lucas said it was not easy deciding which of several images from his research to submit to the Art of Science competition. “This one had a very good balance of being far enough out where we could see multiple types of cells, but not so close that we’re only looking at one or two,” Lucas says. “What I tried to do with the pseudo coloring is to emphasize that variety.”

He hopes this image will convey to people how “stunning it is, in and of itself, that we’re able to capture all of these cells out of blood, a very complex solution” – in ways that could change peoples’ lives.

Read more about this year's Art of Science Competition here.

Biomedical engineering doctoral student Kilean Lucas delivers his presentation
at the annual Falling Walls competition. (University photo / Bob Marcotte)

Kilean Lucas admits to being uneasy about trying to summarize his research in three minutes, with only three slides.

You wouldn’t have known it yesterday, when Lucas, a PhD student in biomedical engineering, placed first at the University’s Falling Walls competition.

Lucas won $500 and an all-expenses paid trip to represent the University at the international Falling Walls competition in Berlin this fall.

Lucas described how the silicon nanomembranes developed in the lab of his advisor, James McGrath, could be used to filter out telltale exosomes (small, cell-derived vesicles) from the blood to provide early detection of cancer.

“There’s a lot of weight off my shoulders,” he said afterwards. “I was very nervous about coming to this and being able to communicate my project clearly in three minutes. That’s the hardest part of this.”

So how did he prepare?

With a big assist from his mentor and colleagues.

“I came up with the slides with help of professor McGrath,” Lucas said. Then I came up with a script that I tried out on my lab mates.”

Their feedback helped Lucas through four revisions of the script.

”Then I got together a group of people including my advisor and random people around the department and did a dry run. They gave me a lot of feedback,” Lucas said. In fact, he added, laughing, “ They tore my script apart. I completely reworked it yesterday.”

Sixteen competitors presented in front of a faculty panel that included jury chairman Richard Waugh, interim dean of faculty and associate vice president for research; Kim Arcoleo, associate dean for research at the School of Nursing; Dirk Bohmann, senior associate dean for basic research at the School of Medicine and Dentistry (SMD); Stephen Dewhurst, vice dean for research at SMD; Wendi Heinzelman, dean of the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Joan Saab, chair of art and art history.

Runner up Kevin Mazurek, a post doctoral fellow in neurology, described a neurorehabilitative approach to help victims of stroke or other brain injury regain the ability to perform daily tasks.

Neurosurgery resident Jonathan Stone, the third place winner, described how patient-specific models of simulated tissue could help surgeons practice difficult procedures ahead of time.

The Falling Walls competition commemorates the fall of the Berlin Wall by giving young entrepreneurs and inventors from around the world the opportunity to express ideas about how to “break down the walls” hindering progress in dealing with challenges confronting science and society.

Lucas’ three-minute presentation:

Today I am going to talk to you about breaking the wall of cancer diagnostics.

Over the course of our lifetime, we have a 40 percent chance of developing cancer, and a 20 percent chance of dying of cancer. Late stage cancers present the highest risk of death as they are like a hydra.

Removing one tumor, or one head, does not guarantee that we kill the whole beast. In fact early diagnosis of cancer can save the lives of over 4 million people around the world each year.

Conveniently, long before cancer presents outward symptoms, it releases subtle clues into the bloodstream in the form of circulating tumor cells and exosomes –50 nanometer vesicles that are basically breadcrumbs of information,

These exosomes contain micro RNA and proteins that are unique to the cells of origin, and provide us with a fingerprint of all the cells present in our body.

While they have all the information we need for diagnosis, searching for them is like searching for needle in haystack. Blood is a multicomponent system, and this makes it very difficult to easily search for these breadcrumbs.

However, what’s the best what to look for a needle in a haystack?

We need to filter out the hay.

For blood, we have developed exactly the filters we need to do this.

Silicon nanomembranes are one-of-a kind-technology that has been developed right here at the University of Rochester. We have the ability to uniquely tune their pores for highly specific size cutoffs.

This allows us to take membranes with pores that are micrometers in size to completely remove all the cells from blood, including circulating tumor cells, leaving us with only the exosome containing plasma. We can then take that plasma and pass it over second membrane with nanometer sized pores, filtering out remaining proteins and capturing the exosomes.

By pairing these membranes back to back, we can incorporate them in a single device that we can put in front of a routine blood test, giving us an unobtrusive liquid biopsy for breaking the walls of early cancer diagnostics.

Professor Jim McGrath recently received a Dean's Office PumpPrimer II Grant for his research project titled, "Desalinization with Ultrathin Nafion Membranes.”

Project description: The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report has consistently ranked access to water as one of the most critical issues facing the planet. Arid and drought-strikes regions with ready access to sea water in California, Israel, India, Australia, and elsewhere are investing billions in the production of inefficient reverse osmosis (RO)-based desalinization plants to produce drinkable water. Increasingly, technologists are turning to nanotechnology as a means of reducing costs by fundamental changing the fundamental principles at work. This project will test a prediction that ultrathin (100 nm thick) Nafion® membranes have the potential for desalinization with orders-of-magnitude greater efficiency than conventional reverse-osmosis (RO). This prediction is based on unexpected findings of a rate of osmotic flux of pure water across ultrathin Nafion® membranes used as electroosmotic pumps.

Karl Smith, a PhD student in Biophysics and a member of the lab of James McGrath, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, won third place in the University of Rochester's Falling Walls Competition for describing his use of physics to make water behind a filter form a mixer vortex, reducing the difficulty of normal stirring when fluids stick to surfaces. A total of 19 presenters competed.

The competition is associated with the Falling Walls foundation, a non-profit organization that fosters discussions on research and innovation and promotes the latest scientific findings to society. The Rochester winner's idea will compete with others from around the world at the Falling Walls Lab Finale in November in Berlin. This event selects the participants for the annual Falling Walls Conference the following day: an international forum for science and innovation to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall. Speakers at the conference have included Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany; Nobel Prize winner Sir Paul Nurse; and young inventors from around the world. BBC London said it was where the "brightest minds on the planet" meet.

Last year's Falling Walls Lab Rochester winner, Ryan Trombetta, a BME PhD student in Dr. Awad's lab, finished 12th (out off a 100 finalists worldwide) in the Berlin competition for his description of using 3D printed bone grafts to treat osteomyelitis. See his presentation here.

From left to right, Solomon Abiola, Sara Nowacki and Karl Smith, the top three finishers at the Falling Walls Competition.

BME Professor Jim McGrath has received I-Corps funding for his project entitled Portable Hemodialysis which aims to develop a portable hemodialysis system for acute renal replacement therapy that clears toxins at rates required for human treatments. The McGrath lab will develop a multichip dialysis prototype that clears urea (acute kidney failure) and ammonia (acute liver failure) from blood at a rate (10 mL/min) typical of standard dialysis machines.

The NSF I-Corps program gave us an opportunity to investigate the commercial viability of our ideas for wearable hemodialysis by talking to 100 potential ‘customers.’ These customers included patients, doctors, caregivers, dialysis center and hospital administrators, first responders, engineers, social workers and more. The experience transformed our understanding of hemodialysis, how it is administered, and where the technology needs actually are. We’ve used the I-Corps experience to write highly informed and focused grant proposals to the NIH that we hope will enable us to translate our technology and actually improve the life of patients with end stage renal failure, said McGrath.

Department of Biomedical Engineering Professors Dr. Hani Awad and Dr. James McGrath were recently inducted as American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) Fellows for their significant contributions to the biomedical engineering community.

AIMBE's College of Fellows includes around 1,500 individuals who have made significant contributions to the medical and biological engineering community whether in academia, industry, or government and their contributions to research, industry practice, and education have transformed the world.

The Center for Emerging & Innovative Sciences (CEIS) has announced SiMPore and Micropen Technologies as the winners of the 2013-2014 Short Term Applied Research (STAR) program. The STAR program focuses on New York State small businesses to address and solve time critical science and business problems.

SiMPore is a Rochester, N.Y.–based nanotechnology company co-founded by James McGrath, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Graduate Program Director of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Rochester. SiMPore designs and produces membranes and membrane-enabled products based on its unique patent-pending platform technology—the NanoBarrier™ ultrathin nanoporous silicon membrane. The NanoBarrier™ membrane is the world’s first membrane to offer both tunable nanometer-scale thickness and pore size. SiMPore is developing products that take advantage of these one-of-a-kind features, including filters for separating and concentrating biological molecules and nanoparticles, cell culture substrates for growing cells, and electron microscopy grids for preparing and imaging samples at the nanoscale. For more information please visit SiMPore.

Micropen Technologies is a design, development, and manufacturing resource and partner to electronics companies and medical device companies in the specialized technology of applying functional materials to surfaces.

Micropen Technologies has collaborated with the University of Rochester for more than a year on medical balloons with ablation electrodes and temperature sensors that can precisely apply energy to deactivate or destroy targeted nerves. In particular, denervation of renal nerves holds great promise in treating patients with drug-resistant hypertension. The work started as a Senior Design Project in the Biomedical Engineering Department and has continued at the Center for Medical Technology & Innovation. The goal is to develop a universal printed balloon solution for denervation therapies applied anywhere in the body. For more information please visit Micropen Technologies.

A microfluidic bioreactor consists
of two chambers separated by a nanoporous silicon membrane.

The ability to shrink laboratory-scale processes to automated chip-sized systems would revolutionize biotechnology and medicine. For example, inexpensive and highly portable devices that process blood samples to detect biological agents such as anthrax are needed by the U.S. military and for homeland security efforts. One of the challenges of lab-on-a-chip technology is the need for miniaturized pumps to move solutions through micro-channels. Electroosmotic pumps (EOPs), devices in which fluids appear to magically move through porous media in the presence of an electric field, are ideal because they can be readily miniaturized. EOPs, however, require bulky, external power sources, which defeats the concept of portability. But a super-thin silicon membrane developed at the University of Rochester could now make it possible to drastically shrink the power source, paving the way for diagnostic devices the size of a credit card.

Up until now, electroosmotic pumps have had to operate at a very high voltage - about 10 kilovolts, said James McGrath, associate professor of biomedical engineering. Our device works in the range of one-quarter of a volt, which means it can be integrated into devices and powered with small batteries.

McGrath's research paper is being published this week by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The University of Rochester women's team beat out the others, completing the 3.5-mile course of Corporate Challenge Championship in a combined 1 hour, 24 minutes and 41 seconds. UR's Jessica Snyder (running the course in 20 minutes, 19 seconds) led Sarah Loerch, Kristina Maletz, and Christina deVries across the finish line.

It was the first time Rochester hosted the international championships; 10,921 runners registered for the regular race, which took place at the same time and venue as the championships.

When University of Rochester scientist James McGrath started his career, doing research that would lead to marketable products was not a priority.

But the landscape has changed dramatically. Government funding for research has been stagnant for several years. Public and private grants now come with greater demands for results that can help drive profits and economic development.

Some venture capital firms are investing less in small early-stage projects. Pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers have switched from in-house research to working with universities and other institutions. Partnerships between university researchers and industry have grown.

Imagine a dialysis machine small enough that a patient could wear it. A super-thin filtering material may allow researchers at the University of Rochester to revolutionize dialysis for patients with kidney disease. Jim McGrath, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Rochester, says the thinner the membrane that blood passes through, the more efficient its filtering capacity.

McGrath says the material they're working with filters blood more efficiently, and could end up in a much smaller device that could fit on an arm band. We can basically replace the experience of going to a dialysis center three times a week with nightly dialysis at home with a device that's about the size of a cell phone and achieve the same sort of clearance level. This is actually like a clinic on a chip, he said.

4" wafer with 160 membranes. (Photo by SiMPore Inc.)

Nano-porous silicon membranes developed at the University of Rochester's Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences will soon be used to manufacture portable devices that can analyze DNA in remote settings.

A $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation will fund a partnership among Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, James McGrath, SiMPore, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Integrated Nanotechnologies (INT) to fabricate the devices.

Biomedical Engineering associate professor, Jim McGrath, Ph.D. has just received some important grants to develop new applications for the super-thin, nanoporous silicon membranes that have been developed at the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences. A nearly $600,000 National Science Foundation grant will partner McGrath's lab, SiMPore (the University-based startup that manufactures the membranes), RIT, and Integrated Nanotechnologies (INT), another local startup. They'll be using the membranes as filters in a portable INT device that can analyze DNA extracted from a drop of blood. This can be used to diagnose disease or detect pathogens, in the field, in a matter of minutes. They'll then miniaturize all of this onto a lab-on-a-chip (LOC).

Another $300,000 from NSF will fund McGrath's ongoing research to modify the membranes for additional uses; a $100,000 grant continuation from the Coulter Foundation will fund McGrath's efforts to develop a blood dialysis device, using a silicon membrane, that would be small enough to wear on a belt. Imagine what a godsend that would be, if people could remain mobile and active while undergoing continuous dialysis, instead of sitting four hours a day, three days a week in dialysis centers!

Professors James McGrath, Ph.D. (Biomedical Engineering) and Jeremy Taylor, M.D. (Nephrology) were recently awarded a Coulter Foundation grant to develop a wearable hemodialysis system using a breakthrough silicon nanomembrane technology originally developed at the University of Rochester. Taking advantage of the extraordinary permeability and selectivity of the nanomembranes, the team hopes to eventually replace clinic-based hemodialysis with a much smaller continuous dialysis system that allows patients to remain mobile. As clinical dialysis requires hours of immobilization during dialysis and fluctuations in toxin levels that cause side effects, a continuous wearable system would provide dramatic improvement in patient lifestyle.

U.S. Rep. Louise Slaughter will join UR President Joel Seligman, Hajim School Dean Rob Clark, and Department of Physics and Astronomy Chair Nicholas Bigelow today for the opening of the Integrated Nanosystems Center. A news conference is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in Munnerlyn Atrium, Goergen Hall. The facility brings together the disciplines of physics, optics, chemistry, biomedicine, and bioengineering to enable research in the fields of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

BME student Kelli Summers presenting
her research at this year's undergraduate symposium.

Congratulations to BME undergraduate student Kelli Summers, who has been selected as a 2011-2012 Fulbright Scholar to conduct research on Implementing a Strategy to Combat Child Pneumonia Fatalities in Ghanaian Rural Hospitals.

Kelli will leave for Malawi at the end of May to learn about conducting anthropological research and begin her Fulbright research. She will then travel to St. Francis Xavier Hospital in Assin Foso, Ghana for her Fulbright year and will collaborate with a physician she met during a volunteer experience in 2009. She hopes to create modifications to the World Health Organization's Child Lung Health Program (CLHP) through the use of a focus group and then implement it in the Children's Ward to ultimately decrease the child mortality rate at St. Francis and provide a model for other hospitals in the area.

Her research builds upon the CLHP, which contains protocols to assess and treat childhood pneumonia in developing countries in an effort to decrease the child mortality rate. After conducting extensive literary research, Kelli believes three major problems of the CLHP prevail:

• Disconnect between the policy-makers and the hospital staff implementing the program
• Lack of cultural specificity in nurse education and expectations for patient receptiveness
• Lack of diagnostic technology - specifically pulse oximeters

Kelli has been the immediate past president of the Student Chapter of BMES, and has been involved with BMES since she was a freshman. As co-founder and co-President of UR Genocide Intervention, Kelli helped to raise awareness, advocate to local politicians, raise money for victims, and secure scholarships for Sudanese students to come to the University of Rochester through Banaa. Additionally, Kelli has been tutoring local refugee high school and middle school kids every Saturday for the past year and a half. It's been interesting interacting with them, said Kelli about the kids, It's incredible to see how much they've grown in such a short time. Kelli has also been working in Professor McGrath's Laboratory since her sophomore year conducting research under an NIH grant on Mechanisms Underlying Collective Cell Migration in Vitro. She won the Presidential Research Award this year and is currently working on a peer-reviewed paper as the primary author to submit to the Annals of Biomedical Engineering.

Congratulations to the RCBU and BME students whose work was recognized at the prestigious annual University of Rochester Undergraduate Research Exposition 2011. Undergraduate students from RCBU and BME research laboratories participated in the symposium. BME undergrads Benjamin Freedman '11 and Kelli Summers '11 were both invited to speak at the Engineering and Applied Sciences Symposium Talks.

Freedman discussed his work, What is Q-Angle really measuring? A novel alternative to predict patellar maltracking, which received the Dean's Award. Summers spoke about her research with Dr. James McGrath, Mechanisms Underlying Collective Cell Migration in Vitro, which was recognized by President Seligman with the President's Award. Aaron Zakrzewski (ME '11), mentored by Mechanical Engineering Professor Sheryl Gracewski, gave an oral presentation of his research titled Natural frequency of bubbles within rigid and compliant tubes. Aaron also received a Deans' Award for Undergraduate Research in Engineering and Applied Sciences for his presentation. In addition, five of the seven poster exhibitions from the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences were by BME students:

Molly Boutin (Benoit Lab) BME '11

A Polymeric Delivery System to Induce Differentiation in hMSCs

Jasmine Carvalho (Dalecki Lab) BME '11

Investigations of Ultrasound Parameters to Promote Spatial Organization of Cells in Three-Dimensional Engineered Tissues

Vlabhav Kakkad (McAleavey Lab) BME '12

Experimental Implementation of Shear Wave Induced Phase Encoding Imaging

Angela Ketterer (Carney Lab) BME '12

Design and Implementation of a Behavioral Apparatus for Auditory Research in Birds

Hannah Watkins (Benoit Lab) BME '11

Novel Parthenolide Delivery System for Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment

(Received the Professor's Choice Award)

Representing UR in the JPMorgan
Chase Corporate Challenge
Championship will be Jessica Snyder
(left and far right in inset photo)
and (from left in inset photo) Luke
Mortensen, Christina Devries and Chris Hiner.

Jessica Snyder, a biophysics graduate student and member of Jim McGrath's biomedical engineering lab, credits her work as an elite cross-country skier in helping her become the third place female finisher in the Rochester Chase Corporate Challenge last May, which contributed to the University of Rochester (UR) team's win of the mixed team title. The four-member team will now travel to Johannesburg, South Africa for the Championship in March.

Joining Jessica will be Luke Mortensen, a graduate student in Biomedical Engineering; Chris Hine, a graduate student in biochemistry and biophysics; and Christina Devries, a technical associate at the Center for Human Genetics and Molecular Pediatric Disease.

Recent Ph.D. graduate Tom Gaborski is realizing his dream of entrepreneurship as VP of Life Sciences at UR spinoff, SiMPore, Inc. Tom helped found SiMPore Inc. in 2007 while he was a graduate student in the Ph.D. program. The company actually grew out of a chance experiment conducted by Tom and Chris Striemer, who was then a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Chris had inadvertently made the world’s thinnest nanoporous membrane while developing new materials for silicon-based lasers. Tom and Chris designed and conducted experiments to test if the nanoscale pores could be used to separate proteins of different sizes and charges and discovered that they did so very efficiently. The commercial potential of this discovery was immediately obvious to Tom.

Along with their advisors, Chris and Tom founded SiMPore to commercialize the discovery. The company now employs 9 people and started selling membranes in January of 2009. Sales have been steadily increasing as advertising efforts payoff and global interest in the material grows. Tom wears many hats in the small start-up but his primary job is to lead the company in its development of products for the biological sciences. Under Tom’s leadership, devices for protein and DNA purification are already in the SiMPore product pipeline.

SiMPore Inc., a company commercializing nanotechnology invented at the University of Rochester, has developed an ultra-thin microscope slide that significantly improves high-resolution imaging of nanoscale materials such as proteins, viruses, and carbon nanotubes. This is the first commercial application of a unique nanomembrane initially reported in Nature in 2007.

SiMPore, Inc., a spin-off company founded by engineers on River Campus, recently won the Golden Horseshoe Business Challenge, a $100,000 prize recognizing its business plan as the best in a region encompassing western New York and eastern Ontario. SiMPore also attracted $1.25 million in investments financed primarily by local Rochester high net worth individuals. In addition to VP of Life Sciences Tom Gaborski, (BME Ph.D. 2008), this venture involves interactions with numerous BME faculty members and students.

On April 1, 2008 UR/SiMPore, Inc. began a NYSTAR-sponsored collaboration to commercialize pnc-Si membranes. The Technology Transfer Incentive Program (TTIP) award was one of only 2 University-based technologies supported by NYSTAR this year. Specifically, University of Rochester was awarded $473,000 to work with SiMPore to use previously developed porous-silicon ultra filtration technology in biochemical separation.