Carolina KickStart has selected two winners for its Innovation Fellowship program—Dr. Ryan Gessner and Dr. Nicholas Dobes, both of whom have ties to our own Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering! The Innovation Fellowships are designed to enable the winners to work full-time for UNC spinout companies in need of technical and scientific expertise. Ryan Gessner, a recent Ph.D. graduate coming from Paul Dayton’s Lab, will work for SonoVol, and Nicholas Dobes, a recent Ph.D. student coming out of Dr. Nancy Allbritton’s lab, will work for Cell Microsystems.
CarolinaKickstart is a part of the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute (NC TraCS), and it is particularly involved in helping UNC spinout companies achieve success.
Ryan Gessner’s thoughts on UNC and innovation were quoted in the Carolina KickStart press release: “UNC is becoming a great place for small companies. For hundreds of years, universities were exclusively for the pursuit of academic endeavors. It was very rare that companies would not only emerge from, but also operate within the walls of the ivory tower. UNC is definitely ahead of the curve in that respect. The people at Carolina KickStart know about business and about starting companies, so being formally plugged into that network of entrepreneurs and business people will be great for the growth of our company.”
Congratulations to both Dr. Dobes and Dr. Gessner on their Innovation Fellowships! To read more, see the Carolina KickStart press release.