Virginia Biosciences Health Research Corporation, now known as Virginia Catalyst, and the Commonwealth Health Research Board (CHRB) have partnered to award a $300,000 grant to a team from Sanyal Biotechnology, Eastern Virginia Medical School and George Mason University.

​The grant aims to help accelerate the commercialization of Sanyal Biotechnology’s innovative DIAMONDTM mouse model, which is being commercialized for preclinical assessment of therapeutic agents for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a severe liver disease that can lead to fibrosis, cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Virginia Catalyst will provide $100,000 in funding while CHRB will provide $200,000. Sanyal Biotechnology is investing $166,000 as matching funds for the project titled, “Characterization of GUT Microbiome and Liver Cell Populations to Accelerate Commercialization of the DIAMONDTM Mouse Model.” 

Seven academic research institutions in Virginia have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to share core facilities and resources in an effort to advance life sciences and other areas of research in the Commonwealth. This initiative will accelerate the commercialization of Virginia’s innovations, creating more high potential start-up companies, producing many more high-paying jobs, and growing the Commonwealth’s biosciences economy.

The Vice Presidents for Research from the University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Eastern Virginia Medical School, George Mason University, Old Dominion University, Virginia Tech and William & Mary, working together with Virginia Catalyst, have achieved a breakthrough in collaborations that will greatly increase Virginia's competitiveness nationally and globally.

The universities have agreed to provide reciprocal access to shared R&D resources. The institutions have individually made significant investments to acquire specialized equipment and establish unique research laboratories to support basic, translational and clinical research. To further enhance the availability of these existing resources, the institutions seek to share, in an economical manner, specialized technical services and access to equipment and expertise for research purposes.

​Read the full press release.