Abell Foundation to award $50,000 to 3 Johns Hopkins researchers for medical inventions

Johns Hopkins' John Wong, Ph.D., has won a BioMaryland LIFE Award, and Ronald Berger, M.D., Ph.D., and Hien Nguyen, M.D., were awarded funds from the Abell Foundation, the researchers learned last week. Each of the winners will receive $50,000 to help develop their discoveries for clinical use.

The prizes were awarded as part of the annual Joint Meeting of the Johns Hopkins Alliance for Science and Technology Development and the University of Maryland, Baltimore Commercial Advisory Board on Feb. 19. The meeting was attended by more than 150 venture capitalists, seasoned biotech entrepreneurs and business development executives from the biopharma industry. Judging committees evaluated presentations from two dozen university researchers before selecting the winners. The aim of the awards is to speed the translation of promising research into commercial application.

First awarded in 2010, the LIFE Prizes are two grants funded by the Maryland Biotechnology Center, Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland to help advance research in biotech and biopharma, medical devices, or diagnostics that have great potential for commercial application. Wong will use the funding to develop technology that will aid in the safer delivery of radiation therapy. This year's other winner was the University of Maryland School of Dentistry's Mark Shirtliff.

For the first time this year, the Abell Foundation also donated funds for two prizes to be awarded at the Joint Meeting. Founded 60 years ago in Baltimore, the foundation's mission is to enhance quality of life in the city. Berger's award will help his team develop advanced defibrillation technology based on their discoveries about the effects of high-frequency alternating current on the heart's electrical patterns. Nguyen will use his prize funds to continue the development of FastStitch, a device that can close the muscle layers of the chest and abdomen in a way that allows surgeons more precision and consistency while requiring less time and resources.