It’s part of a new student-led UofL event called , that asks teams to create innovative solutions to health care problems and build startups around them in just 48 hours.

Judges selected three winning teams, each of which receive support to help them refine their ideas ahead of a finals competition in spring:��

• MAC-BIO’s new cell-based therapy for the treatment of aggressive solid tumors. Team: Jordan Noe, MD/PhD student.
• Mean Business, with a��UofL research-born ��patented through the UofL Commercialization EPI-Center. Team: Krishawna Dupin, Stephanie Frank, Michelle Anderson and Alex Godfrey, all Innovation MBA students.��
• Mend Corp’s software that uses machine learning to optimize nurse workflow. Team: Noah Wilding, electrical engineering student, and Katya Kovatsenko and Shah Tarun, both bioengineering students.��

Each winning team receives��mentorship and coaching, modest funding to develop their prototype and free registration (an $895+ value) for the��2021 spring cohort of��, UofL’s 10-week entrepreneurial training boot camp. CardStart is backed by the ,�� and the .

“This event really helped us create a foundation of how a start-up company actually starts up,” said Tarun, of the Mend Corp team. “That weekend felt quite long and short at the same time, but the overall results really got us by surprise. Mend Corp’s next aim is to procure the solution that we had presented for CardStart for our enigma of a problem.”

Students worked on their ideas in between a jam-packed schedule of keynotes, coaching and workshops����and other experts, including Liberate Medical’s Angus��McLachlan, UofL’s Entrepreneurs-in-Residence and CardStart’s faculty mentors, Mary Tapolsky, of business, and Tommy Roussel, of engineering.

Samantha Morrissey, a medical student and member of the CardStart student organizing committee, said the event is meant to encourage students to think outside the box and gain hands-on experience innovating.��

“This is a great and unique event at UofL that affords students the opportunity and possible financial support to explore entrepreneurship,” she said. “We want students to get creative and transform their ideas into real world technologies that could ultimately be developed into their very own startup.”

The program provides training and $50,000 in funding that helps university researchers translate the ideas they develop in the lab into new, technology-backed startups. Participating teams complete an intense, two-month bootcamp learning about commercialization, engaging with industry and talking to potential customers.

Two projects from UofL were chosen to participate in recent bootcamp cohorts:

• BioCaRGOS, short for Capture and Release Gels for Optimized Storage (bioCaRGOS), uses a novel water-based stabilizer to enable storage of sensitive biospecimens like RNA, DNA or proteins at low temperatures for long periods of time, including during transport to remote locations. The project team includes: co-inventors Gautam Gupta and��Rajat Chauhan, both in the J.B. Speed School of Engineering, and business mentor Jeff Cummins, who also is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the UofL Office of Research and Innovation.

• ARNA, short for , an artificially intelligent health care robot created to provide round-the-clock patient monitoring and allow nurses to focus more on direct patient care by taking on some of their time-consuming tasks. The project team includes: co-inventors Dan Popa and Sumit Kumar Das, of engineering, and business mentor Mary Tapolsky, of the UofL Forcht Center for Entrepreneurship.

Chauhan, of the BioCaRGOS team, said the experience helped his team find an industry commercialization partner. They currently are seeking partners for an upcoming application NSF Partnerships for Innovation program, which allows NSF-backed projects like his to work with industry on research and development and accelerate the technology’s path to market.

“Vaccine stability (especially for COVID-19) remains a critical challenge and is the critical bottleneck for effective distribution of the state-of-art MRNA based vaccines to current population,” said Chauhan, BioCaRGOS entrepreneurial lead and a postdoctoral research scientist. “Our technology has the potential to advance the delivery of vaccines at room temperature, a feat that cannot be achieved currently.”

Teams must be nominated for the national I-Corps bootcamp, and must first complete a regional . Both the BioCARGOS and ARNA teams completed UofL’s I-Corps site program — part of UofL’s suite of��, that also includes the UofL , NIH and NSF programs. I-Corps at UofL requires successful participation and completion of , UofL’s own 10-week entrepreneurial bootcamp.

“These programs support commercialization of the work being done by our researchers here at UofL,” said Jessica Sharon, UofL’s director of innovation programs. “We’re proud of the ARNA and BioCARGOS teams, and their work to accelerate product development of their innovations to address unmet needs in the market.”��

The virtual event, called , kicks off on Oct. 23, with closing remarks and winners announced on Oct. 25. Winners of the student-led event, backed by the and , will receive mentorship, training and modest funding that can help bring their ideas to life, while preparing for the finals pitch competition in the spring.

“This is a great and unique event at UofL that affords students the opportunity and possible financial support to explore entrepreneurship,” said Samantha Morrissey, a medical student and member of the CardStart student organizing committee. “We want students to get creative and transform their ideas into real world technologies that could ultimately be developed into their very own startup.”

Participating student teams will have the weekend to tackle a health care industry problem. Tammy York Day,��chief executive officer of��sponsor, the����said CardStart is an opportunity for students to get creative and gain experience working with the health care industry.

“The students at UofL are full of creativity, energy and drive,” she said. “They’re the next generation of our health care workforce — the innovators and doers. LHCC is proud to support CardStart and give those students an opportunity to tackle some real industry problems.”

The weekend also features a jam-packed schedule of keynotes, coaching and workshops and other experts, including Liberate Medical’s Angus��McLachlan, Ph.D., Wicked Sheets’ Alli Truttmann, UofL’s Entrepreneurs-in-Residence and CardStart’s faculty mentors, Mary Tapolsky, of business, and Tommy Roussel, of engineering.

Students will get one-on-one advice, and learn about customer discovery, making a pitch and more.��At the end of the weekend, teams will pitch their ideas to a panel of judges, who will select up to four winners.

Each winning team will receive��mentorship and coaching, modest funding to develop their prototype and free registration (an $895+ value) for the��2021 spring cohort of , UofL’s 10-week entrepreneurial training boot camp.��

The four winning teams will pitch again in��spring 2021 to a panel of industry experts and health care leaders��for a chance to win cash prizes.��

Students can register with a team, or register individually and be placed with a team day-of. Teams should be multi-disciplinary, including members from a variety of majors. More information and registration is available on the website.