Northeastern University

<p>Northeastern University’s Center for Research Innovation (CRI) is an impact driven initiative bridging the gap between laboratory research and need-based solutions. The CRI serves as the University-wide portal between industry and leading-edge innovations from Northeastern’s use-inspired research portfolio.</p>
<p>Over the past seven years, research activity at Northeastern has more than doubled. Northeastern’s cutting edge faculty focus their use-inspired research on solving the nation’s greatest challenges in health, security, and sustainability. The Center for Research Innovation connects private companies with the researchers and inventions that meet their business needs – now and in the rapidly evolving future. Our team of professionals all have business and entrepreneurial experience. We strive for a high level of responsiveness and service, moving with speed and flexibility.</p>
<p><strong>Industry Connections:</strong></p>
<p>The CRI is the University’s bridge to industry. We are continuously building relationships with companies to identify their key technology needs and to explore opportunities for collaboration. Our network spans across industry, from the Life Sciences to the Physical Sciences. The CRI aims not only to license individual technologies, but to form long standing partnerships with industry, leveraging the core competencies of our faculty and students.</p>
<p><strong>Collaboration Benefits:</strong></p>
<p>The CRI aims to move beyond the standard paradigm of one-off licenses, focusing instead on forming long-term relationships with industry. We look to assist companies with their ongoing technology needs, leveraging the expertise of our faculty. Collaborating partners can expect flexible terms and IP policy, “high touch” and responsive service, world leading research and development and access to Northeastern resources, including use of labs and equipment.</p>
<p><strong>Research Capabilities:</strong></p>
<p>Northeastern has cutting-edge research in areas such as the Life Sciences, Nanotechnology and Network Research. The CRI can arrange briefings from faculty whose research aligns with your key corporate priorities.</p>
<p>The CRI team is agile and responsive – focused on the translation of University innovations into tangible solutions through licenses, spinouts and collaborations. Our dedication to establishing ongoing dialogue with industry informs Northeastern’s progressive research, enabling a productive balance between exploration and implementation.</p>


<h1 id="background">Background</h1>
<p>Viscosity measurements determine a liquid’s flow, spread, level, and other important properties. In industries such as pharmaceuticals, food, cosmetics, and biomedical diagnostics, precise viscosity measurement is key. Current technology in the market varies from orifice viscometers, that are not sensitive and provide inaccurate readings that differ across operators, to rotational viscometers, involving an offline process with results that are easily affected by external factors. In the pharmaceutical field, viscosity is a major indicator of infectability of formulations. A new technology in viscometry that can achieve ultra-sensitive measurements will help maximize production efficiency and cost effectiveness.</p>
<h1 id="technology-overview">Technology Overview</h1>
<p>Northeastern researchers have developed a real-time viscometry device that is multifunctional, ultrasensitive, and cost-effective. Another major application of the developed technology is in biomolecular interaction analysis (BIA) which is a critical analysis in pharmaceutical discovery and development, immunological and biochemical research, and food analysis. The developed technology has been utilized for protein binding kinetics measurement achieving sensitivity higher than that of surface plasma resonance (SPR). The technology is comprised of well-defined polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) micropillars on an acoustic wave substrate (e.g. quartz crystal plate). A unique resonant coupling between the micropillar and quartz substrate vibrations enables e, a 20-fold increase in sensitivity as compared to traditional quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) viscometer. The device is also able to achieve an extremely low limit of detection. The device has been used for measuring interactions of human IgG (hIgG) – anti-hIgG at nM level concentrations and the results show the equilibrium dissociation constant, KD (=ka/kd) is very similar between developed mPAW technology and SPR. The mPAW technology-based biosensor has been developed as an early warning device for tracking COVID-19 prevalence in populations through wastewater analysis with a sensitivity of ~200 gene copies /ml.</p>
<h1 id="benefits">Benefits</h1>
<ul>
<li>Low sampling volume </li>
<li>High sensitivity and accuracy</li>
<li>Real-time measurements</li>
<li>Low cost and small footprint</li>
</ul>
<h1 id="applications">Applications</h1>
<ul>
<li>Viscosity measurement in pharmaceutical, cosmetic, food, and biomedical diagnostics industries</li>
<li>Biomolecular interaction analysis (BIA) for drug development and discovery, immunological and biochemical research, and food analysis. </li>
<li>Portable and rapid COVID-19 biosensor for Point-of-Care patient screening and community outbreak surveillance</li>
</ul>
<h1 id="opportunity">Opportunity</h1>
<p>Seeking Licensee and/or industry partner</p>
