On Thursday, December 5, Prof. Milica Radisic (ChemE/IBBME), Prof. Boyang Zhang (IBBME), and Dr. Yimu Zhao (ChemE/IBBME) received the 2019 Innovation & Commercialization Award presented by Tissue Engineering International & Regenerative Medicine Society (TERMIS) at the 2019 TERMIS-AM Annual Conference & Exhibition, being held from December 2-5 at the Loewes Sapphire Falls Resort in Orlando, Florida.
This award recognizes outstanding achievements made by Prof. Radisic and her team in commercializing their organ-on-a-chip technology through TARA biosystems, where miniaturized cardiac ‘organs’ can be used to test various pharmaceutical compounds for efficacy and safety. The company uses a proprietary technology called Biowire developed by the Radisic lab, which is based out of a microfluidic chip that encases compartmentalized cardiac tissue.
Based out of New York, TARA biosystems have raised $10 million in the past five years. Along with Professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic and her team from Columbia University, this award is one of the first from TERMIS to recognize multi-institutional collaboration.
As a leader in regenerative medicine, Prof. Radisic and her team have made numerous milestone publications in multidisciplinary journals such as Cell and Nature. Her scientific achievements have also been recognized on the national and international level, including her recent inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and as a recipient of the Steacie Prize in 2017.