Goldberg will serve as an entrepreneur-in-residence, or EIR, through the . In this role, he will work with UofL to connect inventions to industry and startups.

Goldberg brings nearly 30 years of experience as a medical doctor and C-suite executive, previously working for major brands and startups including ExpressScripts and Aetna Inc. Goldberg recently retired as Chief Health Officer of clinical laboratory Quest Diagnostics, where he also supported the enterprise investment fund and new ventures.

“UofL is doing some really interesting and impactful work in developing new diagnostics, treatments and therapies,” Goldberg said. “I’m excited to work with the team and with the university’s researchers to help drive those innovations to market and clinical settings, where they can help patients.”

Goldberg joins a class of EIRs that currently includes seasoned founders Alice Shade (healthcare), Tendai Charasika (software), Bill Dawson (health and biotech) and Chirs Bailey (manufacturing). Shade joined as part of the second round of EIRs in 2020, followed by Charasika in 2021 and Dawson and Bailey in 2023.

The EIR program is led by the Office of Research and Innovation’s UofL New Ventures team, which focuses on launching startups around research-born tech. The EIR program is in partnership with Amplify, an organization working to grow Louisville’s entrepreneurship ecosystem, with funding from the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development.

“We’re thrilled to have Dr. Goldberg join our team, and for the continued growth of the entrepreneurs-in-residence program in partnership with Amplify,” said Will��Metcalf,��a UofL associate vice president for research and innovation.��“Our EIRs bring incredible experience and connection to UofL – Dr. Goldberg is the perfect example of that, joining us through a connection with another EIR, Alice Shade. His experience in health and medical innovation is a powerful addition to our already strong team and will undoubtedly drive innovation forward.”

SoFab Inks LLC was founded by UofL graduate students Blake Martin, Peter Armstrong and Sashil Chapagain, who won DOE’s for technology they helped develop along with UofL investigators Thad Druffel and Craig Grapperhaus. SoFab Inks is one of only three companies currently moving on to the final stage of the competition.

Solar panels today are typically made of single-crystal silicon, which requires expensive processing using clean room environments. The American-Made Perovskite Startup Prize is designed to accelerate the use of perovskite crystalline semiconductor materials that can be produced using simpler known printing techniques, resulting in improved efficiency, durability and affordability.

The UofL technology improves these panels further by replacing other expensive photovoltaic materials with a liquified “ink.” This more cost-effective, high-performance liquid can be deposited as one of the conductive layers of a solar cell called charge transport layers that allow electrons to move and produce electricity. The UofL-held technology is patent-pending. ��

“The perovskite technology is a new entrant in the solar energy industry and has clear potential to radically reduce costs both due to low cost of materials and simple manufacturing,” Druffel said. “This prize reflects the potential of this technology and this team. They are well suited to continue to validate this technology and demonstrate substantial progress towards commercialization over the next year.”

The next step for SoFab Inks is to begin production and scale up capacity. In about a year, their progress in commercializing the product will be evaluated for the final prize award. The founders also plan to market their materials to LED and detector manufacturers.

“The mission of SoFab Inks is to accelerate the decarbonization of electrification by improving efficiency, scalability, stability and bankability of perovskite solar cells,” Martin said. “The $200,000 prize will allow us to scale our process up and begin selling to customers.”

Vulcanization makes the rubber more durable, but also makes it difficult to break down for recycling. Today, a lot of used rubber is burned for fuel, chopped up or left in landfills.��

The UofL technology, invented by Dr. Gerold Willing and Patrick Kroeger, a UofL PhD student and now senior process engineer at Arduro, uses creative chemistry to sustainably reclaim the rubber used in tires and other rubber-based products, like garden hoses, plastics and shoe soles.

“With this technology, we can take the rubber, break it down, and recycle it into new rubber,” said Willing, a UofL associate professor and associate chair of chemical engineering.

Willing worked with the UofL , under the Office of Research and Innovation, to protect the technology’s intellectual property and find a commercial partner.��

That partner is Arduro CEO Ian C. Lowe, who liked the sustainable approach to addressing waste tire and rubber. The U.S. burned some 1.7 million tons of waste tires in 2017, according to . Burning that rubber .��

Lowe wants to shift more of that to recycling, “which we were previously unable to do,” he said. “There’s a great opportunity to reduce our CO2 footprint and produce high quality recycled product to go back into everyday products.”

Lowe licensed the UofL technology after just two months of collaborative discussion and negotiation with the Commercialization EPI-Center, working with commercialization manager, Kayla Meisner. Lowe said he now hopes to work with UofL to develop further applications for the technology, and has opened an R&D and manufacturing facility in Louisville.��

Lowe said Arduro has aggressive plans for expansion, and is developing a new rubber recycling facility capable of processing 20 tons of rubber per day. He said the new facility is scheduled to begin construction in 2020.

“When you look at places best suited to advance this technology and have the ‘know-how’ and capacity to do so, the Speed School of Engineering at the University of Louisville and Louisville area are unique,” he said. “Not every school and region can do that. This one can.”

Willing has been working on this technology since the mid 2000s. He said working in lock-step with the Commercialization EPI-Center helped drive the technology’s development, and gave him insight on potential applications, customers and market size.��

“By fostering the development and commercialization of technologies like this one, we can create strong partnerships that connect researchers, technology and industry,” said Dr. Allen Morris, EPI-Center’s executive director. “We’re looking forward to working with Dr. Willing and Arduro to get this technology to market.”��

The team took down four other teams in the 5 Across finals, each with five minutes to pitch their big idea. That earned Pascal , plus the $500 earned for winning a preliminary round in February.

Pascal Tags is led by engineering student Brandon Young, and recent grad Haley Pfeiffer. The company is based on a that can help track inventory, which Young invented with UofL’s Dr. Thad Druffel.

“This prize money will help us get our pilot programs started faster and really accelerate our growth,” Pfeiffer said. “The competition also allowed us to gain some great connections and tell more people about our innovation.”��

She said Pascal hopes to begin its first pilot programs within the next three to six months. The team also is working to better understand their customers, and continuing its research and development.

The team worked with UofL to protect and commercialize the technology, and participated in UofL’s entrepreneurship training and the��NSF ��(I-Corps) site program��for translational research.��

Since then, they’ve gone on to and Young competed .��

Pfeiffer also has recently been accepted into the����at UofL, aimed at helping women and underrepresented entrepreneurs submit more competitive applications for SBIR and STTR grant funding.

“We are so excited to see the community supporting and believing in Pascal Tags,” Pfeiffer said. “We can’t wait to see what the future holds.”��

The product, BlackTop, is a software platform that lets asphalt contractors locate dump trucks and get the right number to construction sites.

“It feels great to reach this milestone as a company,” CEO Nick McRae said. “As the 2018 construction season gets underway, we are excited to work closely with our current and future customers as they leverage BlackTop to request and track their virtual fleets.”

McRae and co-founder Max Kommor met in the Entrepreneurship MBA program at the UofL College of Business, where students learn how to launch their own companies.

McRae’s background was in software development and information technology leadership, and Kommor had worked in the heavy highway industry. So, starting a construction technology company made perfect sense.

“Assembling a talented development team to bring BlackTop to life was a fun, rewarding experience and one that was made possible through support we received from the University of Louisville, and ,” McRae said.

The team conducted more than 300 customer discovery interviews to identify pain points as they developed their product.

According to the company, typical GPS fleet management solutions use expensive hardware and are built just for companies that own trucks. The BlackTop platform lets the people contracting those trucks request vehicles from preferred trucking vendors directly and track drivers using a free mobile app.

The MetaConstruction team has been working toward this launch for a while. As students, they pitched the idea in several throughout the state,��including UofL’s Brown-Forman Cardinal Challenge. In that challenge, they had coaching from the Forcht Center for Entrepreneurship at the UofL College of Business.

“We are extremely proud of the MetaConstruction team,” said Suzanne Bergmeister, the center’s entrepreneur-in-residence and assistant director. “It’s been amazing to see them build this business — first as UofL students, and now as alumni.”

They refined the idea as participants in the National Science Foundation at UofL, which provides training and mentorship.

“This team has tremendous entrepreneurial spirit and drive,” said Dr. Van Clouse, co-principal investigator for the Innovation Corps program and director of the UofL Forcht Center. “We’re very proud of what they have done so far, and look forward to seeing them build on their success.”��

McRae said there are already plans for that. Now that BlackTop is out, he said the team is looking forward to expanding into the four-state region of Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee and Ohio.

Inscope won a spot in the . The collaboration helps develop promising healthcare innovations.

Companies chosen for the partnership receive a $120,000 investment along with access to with mentors, sponsors, clinical expertise, software and hardware, investors and corporate partners. On Demo Day in June, they will make a pitch to healthcare leaders, investors, journalists and other community members.

Inscope has developed a disposable, low-cost video laryngoscope that is the first all-in-one intubation solution to provide a clear view of every airway. The OneScope airway management device can be used in ambulances, helicopters, hospitals and surgery centers.

The company has won competition after competition for the past year and the team��. It is made up of Maggie Galloway, Mary Nan Mallory, Adam Casson and Will Coburn.

All four earned entrepreneurship master’s of business administration degrees at UofL. Mallory, a physician and professor in UofL’s School of Medicine, co-invented the device and the university’s Office of Technology Transfer licensed its technology.

Gingles and other speakers have brought UofL researchers a wealth of knowledge on “making good pitches to investors, partners and stakeholders, regulatory reimbursements, protecting intellectual property, marketing and dealing with potential roadblocks” to getting a life science product to market according to Jessica Sharon, program co-organizer.

Gingles, whose company is the largest privately owned medical products manufacturer in the world, told the entrepreneurs the human impact of their invention “will have the most impact on your success, not how much money it might make.”�� He offered advice on forming a start-up company versus licensing a technology while adding insight into how Cook Medical decides which inventions to pursue.

A second speaker, Dr. Cedric Francois�� of Apellis Pharmaceuticals, told the group that ��creating and running a start up company has its challenges but great potential for reward.�� Francois is overseeing his second entrepreneurial venture after the first was acquired by a major industry player. His current company ��recently raised $47.1 Million.�� Francois agreed with Gingles�� that team development is paramount to the success of commercialization and that either the licensing or startup path can lead to the same outcome—getting products to market!

UofL is placing an emphasis on getting more faculty to translate and commercialize the inventions they discover at UofL so providing information and identifying resources to make the process easier is a big help to researchers according to Clark.

Radiologist Chin Ng has attended all of the sessions, which he describes as “the training we never got in school”. Ng is developing a novel laser to treat cancer. “I’m a researcher so I know how to write research grant proposals and publish papers” he said. “But these information sessions have taught me I need to stay focused on other things if I hope to get my invention to the marketplace”.

Jill Steinbach-Rankins is a bioengineer who knew that making a pitch to entrepreneurs or investors is outside the norm for an engineer but she’s excited about the opportunity to learn.

The series of seminars includes the name “trifecta” because UofL is the only institution in the country to have received three prestigious translational grants – Coulter Translational Partnership, the NSF I-Corps program and the NIH REACH/UofL ExCITE Award.