Category: People

News

Amy Hopper Swan Joins BioVentures as Strategy Consultant

Amy Hopper Swan is the founder of Swan Impact Strategies, a consulting firm that helps mission-driven organizations design and deliver high-impact programs. With nearly a decade of experience in entrepreneurship, program management and strategic planning, Amy has supported statewide and national initiatives to expand innovation, secure funding and measure outcomes.  Amy will help research and communicate BioVentures’ impact while supporting strategic planning and the exploration of diverse funding models to support entrepreneurship at UAMS, ACH and CAVHS.  She brings a strong background in economic development, impact storytelling and startup support, with a particular focus on translating research into real-world solutions.  Meet Amy at Innovation Week.

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Events

BioVentures at the AUTM Annual Meeting

It was a privilege to join fellow innovators at the AUTM Annual Meeting March 2-5 in National Harbor, Maryland, where we celebrated 50 years of propelling technology transfer forward. BioVentures and our colleagues nationwide remain committed to advancing innovation that transforms the future.  The BioVentures team learned about the latest industry trends and ideas for accelerating discoveries from the lab to the marketplace. Thank you to everyone who connected with us and contributed to these vital discussions.  Keep the conversation going: connect with our team on LinkedIn: Eric Peterson, John Sherrill, Michael Geranen, Stefanie Kennon-McGill 

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News

HSIE scholars win UA pitch competition

Four HSIE scholars won the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Arkansas Seed Funding Pitch Competition, which took place in October. First place went to Gene MassID, whose team members included Megan Reed and Julia Tobacyk, both UAMS HSIE Postdoctoral Fellows. They won a $2,000 prize for future research and development of a diagnostic tool that will personalize the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive brain cancer. Among the 10 teams that received funding in the fall edition of the competition, there was also SiloLink, with the participation of HSIE scholars Kindann Fawcett, Postdoctoral Fellow, and Tiffany Miles, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences Department at UAMS. SiloLink, which won a $1,000 prize, is developing a tool that will gather behavioral data to develop health interventions for rural residents affected by food insecurity. This interdisciplinary team plans to use its funding to test the software it has created. Health Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HSIE) Training Program for Postdoctoral Fellows is an initiative that aims to help the next generation of health scientists transform their discoveries into benefits for health care, cosponsored by TRI and Bioventures. Without the HSIE program, we would not have made the necessary connections to bring our team’s elaborate and diverse skillset into the transnational research space, which is a career aspiration for most of us in this program. Kindann Fawcett, Postdoctoral Fellow at UAMS. You can read more about the pitch competition and the other teams in this post.

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