Top 10 UC technologies for 2023

At the University of Cincinnati, you can maximize the societal impact of new ideas. Our Technology Transfer team in the 1819 Innovation Hub connects companies with innovators to bring inventions into the marketplace. 

Licensing UC-developed technologies allows you to grow your business, launching new products and services or expanding into new markets by harnessing the power of university innovations. 

And now, thanks to the Ohio IP Promise, UC can get ideas from lab to market faster, smarter and better than ever before. Tech Transfer unlocks university IP for industry partners and gives Ohio a competitive advantage in the race for market-ready solutions. 

Since UC has launched the Ohio IP Promise to streamline commercialization: 

• Invention disclosures by UC faculty have risen 51%.
• Deals with UC faculty have risen 109%.
• Issued patents for UC faculty have risen 94%.
• Filed patents by UC faculty have risen 62%. 
• Startups going through the UC Venture Lab have increased from one or two per year to an average of 14 per year; since the lab’s creation, there have been 94 Venture Lab startups total. 
• Total investment dollars from private firms and grants have exceeded $122 million. 

The following list represents 10 of our most promising technologies at UC, including some that are being developed by startups looking to raise funding. 

1. Therapy for addiction

There is currently no approved pharmacotherapy for cocaine use disorder. The patented, humanized antibody used in this novel treatment lasts a long time, so infrequent dosing and long-lasting pro-tection optimizes treatment compliance.

2. Repurposed therapeutic for heart failure

Probenecid is currently used to treat gout. Researchers have discovered that, when used intravenously, it could be used to treat heart failure, one of the nation’s biggest killers.

Startup: TRPV Pharmaceuticals

3. Monitoring tool for diseases associated with diabetes 

Researchers have created a biosensor that can integrate with Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) devices, providing real-time monitoring of comorbidities of diabetes using an existing device that patients already wear and trust.
Startup: Kilele Health

4. AI-based software tools for disease diagnosis

This software identifies both cardiovascular risk and cancer in women with ethical AI-based mammography analysis. The program generates accurate and quantifiable results to aid radiologists’ diagnosis with no extra equipment or procedures required.
Startup: Genexia

5. Treatment for skin conditions

Our researchers have developed peptides which increase skin pigmentation, creating a sunless tan. These compounds also activate DNA repair mechanisms, opening the potential to be not only a preventive of skin cancer but also a treatment.
Startup: MC1R Ventures

6. Material for nerve repair

This material for peripheral nerve repair enables transmission of both electrical and chemical signals to cells. It holds great potential for regenerating nerves across traumatic injury gaps.

7. Patient-specific biodegradable drug delivery 

Biodegradable polymers – which break down and can be eliminated from the body – are used in a variety of medical applications. Researchers have created materials that can be formulated into both erodible drug delivery systems and degradable scaffolds to improve healing outcomes in patients.

8. Circuit designs for cybersecurity

These circuit designs can be programmed and connected to create chips on an asynchronous cycle, making them less vulnerable to attacks by trojan circuits added during manufacturing.

9. System to transform carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide capture is a growing area of interest and investment, and this new method presents a more economically feasible way to convert captured carbon dioxide into useful reduction products like ethene and ethanol.

10. Gene therapy treatment for ALS

There is currently no cure or treatment that substantially prolongs survival in ALS. This potential new treatment, which is designed to be effective even if started late in the disease, targets motor neuron terminal loss.
Startup: ATG Therapeutics

The Tech Transfer team maintains a list of technologies available for licensing. 

Caption: Zalfa A. Abdel-Malek has created a startup, MC1R Ventures, to market a topically applied product that initiates sunless tanning, which could have medical and cosmetic applications.