Symbios Technologies inks 5-year R&D agreement with Colorado State

Wednesday December 7, 2016 0 comments Tags: Fort Collins, CSU, CSU Flint Animal Cancer Center, Symbios Technologies, Dr. Douglas Thamm, Mark Wdowik, Justin Bzdek, Alan Rudolph

FORT COLLINS -- Symbios Technologies, Inc., a leading developer of dynamic aqueous plasma technology platforms, announced a collaborative research partnership with Colorado State University through a five-year Master Research and Development Agreement (MRDA) with the CSU Office of the Vice President for Research.

The agreement is designed to further the commercialization of the company’s technology and CSU’s mission as a modern land-grant university.

The MRDA outlines the working relationship between Symbios and CSU’s world-renowned programs in agriculture, engineering, veterinary medicine, biomedical sciences, chemistry, oncology, biology, and many other disciplines that have established CSU as an international academic and research leader.

Through the MRDA, Symbios has sponsored research agreements, technology transfer, and joint intellectual property development via faculty collaborations and employment.

Currently, Symbios is collaborating with CSU's Dr. Douglas Thamm, professor of oncology and director of Clinical Research at the CSU Flint Animal Cancer Center. Dr. Thamm, a veterinary oncologist, is a consultant on Symbios' current National Institutes of Health grant from the National Cancer Institute.

In addition, Symbios engaged CSU graduate Jessica Joslin, who has a doctorate in physical chemistry, as a National Science Foundation (NSF) postdoctoral fellow. Joslin was subsequently hired as the company’s senior scientist and serves as the principal investigator on two NIH grants in collaboration with CSU.

Through the partnership, Symbios will provide multiple internships to CSU engineering students. James McCall was recently hired as the company’s chemical & biological engineer.

CSU also hosts Symbios as one of the companies in residence at the CSU Research Innovation Center at the Infectious Disease Research Center on the Foothills Campus, further facilitating contracts with multiple laboratories and manufacturing facilities on campus.

“The Office of the Vice President for Research helps fulfill the land-grant mission of CSU by fostering and supporting the research enterprise, promoting scholarship and artistry, instilling a culture of integrity, and capitalizing on opportunities to address global challenges,” said Mark Wdowik, assistant VP for Research & Industry Partnerships.

“The collaboration with Symbios has resulted in a significant investment in CSU research. We anticipate many times that level of engagement, as well as possible licensing of CSU and jointly-developed technologies, as part of Symbios' ongoing collaborations with CSU faculty and students, centers and startup companies, and other private and public partners.”

“CSU has been an outstanding resource to help Symbios commercialize our groundbreaking plasma technology,” said Justin Bzdek, Symbios president and CEO.

“This agreement will help facilitate further collaborative work with the CSU Flint Animal Cancer Center as well as other research faculty who can utilize our low-power, continuous flow plasma technology to develop applications to treat some of the most difficult to remediate industrial processes and wastewater and generate advanced chemotherapeutics and anti-infective products to reduce the global impact of deadly diseases.”

Alan Rudolph, VP for research at CSU, also hailed the partnership.

“Collaborative research relationships like the one with Symbios play a critical role in driving innovations from laboratories to the marketplace," Rudolph said.

"As companies seek new product pipelines, more of them are turning to CSU, which is well-known for its core technical and research and development strengths, its ability to solve today’s complex problems across a broad range of industries, and its capabilities to provide independent, third-party assessments.”