Advancing Science & Entrepreneurship: Catherine Leasure, PhD, Awarded the Second ASPIRE to Innovate Postdoctoral Fellowship
This article was originally published in the 2022 – 2023 Annual Report
By Ashley Brady
Catherine Leasure, PhD, has been awarded the prestigious ASPIRE to Innovate Postdoctoral Fellowship. In her new role, which began on July 1, 2023, she will focus on forming a start-up company based on technology developed at Vanderbilt University by Gregor Neuert, PhD, Associate Professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, that can model the pharmacodynamic profile of drugs.
The ASPIRE to Innovate Postdoctoral Fellowship is a collaborative initiative of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Basic Sciences, the BRET Office of Career Development’s ASPIRE Program, and Vanderbilt’s Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization (CTTC) that seeks to bridge the gap between academic excellence and entrepreneurial pursuits. Dr. Leasure will be supported in her efforts for up to two years and receive extensive mentorship, supplemental training, and participate in a variety of networking opportunities. The selection of Leasure makes her the second fellow to receive this prestigious fellowship, following Karrie Dudek, PhD, in 2021.
“We are thrilled to bring Leasure on this summer as our second ASPIRE to Innovate Postdoctoral Fellow and are excited to watch her learn what it takes to be a founder while also advancing entrepreneurial activities in the School of Medicine Basic Sciences. We have no doubt that she will be successful and will make great strides towards mapping out a commercialization pathway for Dr. Neuert’s technology,” said Kathy Gould, PhD, Senior Associate Dean for Biomedical Research Education and Training. This past spring, Leasure completed her PhD training in Microbe Host Interactions at Vanderbilt University studying heme homeostasis in Staphylococcus aureus and host stress sensing in Bacillus anthracis. While gaining experience in research and scientific methodology, she has remained passionate about applying these skills to projects at the intersection of science and business and is excited about the opportunity to grow her business acumen and strategize how to turn an idea into a company.
“It’s an honor to have been selected for this fellowship and to have the opportunity to translate basic science into real-world solutions. I am excited to have been given this protected time as a postdoc to develop myself as a businesswoman while working to build a viable company,”
shared Leasure.
During her time as a graduate student at Vanderbilt, Leasure took advantage of opportunities to expand her understanding of business and entrepreneurship, such as the ASPIRE Program’s module, Management and Business Principles for Scientists where she worked in a team to consult with a Vanderbilt core facility to solve a real business challenge. She acquired hands-on experience in the pharmaceutical industry through completing a three-month internship in the Microbial Sciences division at AstraZeneca in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Leasure also served in multiple leadership roles, including President of the Graduate Student Association in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology. Leasure has already hit the ground running, working alongside staff at Vanderbilt’s CTTC to learn about intellectual property rights, licensing and market research.
She also is spending time with Neuert and his research team gaining familiarity with the technology. This fall Leasure will participate in the Wond’ry’s Ideator program where she will take the technology through an initial evaluation process, performing customer discovery and market evaluation. Upon completion of the Ideator curriculum, she will have the opportunity to pitch the idea to a panel of judges for potential microgrant funding, which would then qualify her for application to the National Science Foundation’s I-CORPS program. Leasure hopes to follow in Dudek’s footsteps and gain acceptance into this prestigious program, which provides additional entrepreneurial training and a $50K non-dilutive grant to help support further commercialization of the technology.
Final deliverables for ASPIRE to Innovate Postdoctoral Fellows include creating a market research and customer discovery presentation, developing a business plan and financial model, building a pitch deck for speaking to investors and delivering it at various business pitch competitions, and submitting applications for a Launch Tennessee microgrant and a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the NIH to secure future funding.
Dudek and Ethan Lippmann, PhD, Associate Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, recently co-founded Eupalinos, a medical device company whose novel hydrogel technology promotes the rapid growth of large blood vessels that form robust vascular networks capable of restoring blood flow to ischemic tissues.
According to Dudek, “the ASPIRE to Innovate Postdoctoral Fellowship has been an incredible experience and opened more doors than I could have ever thought possible, changing my career trajectory overall. Through this program, I have been given the support and resources to start with a technology that was little more than a concept at the time and begin to build a company around it. Becoming integrated into the local entrepreneurial ecosystem, and developing the Vanderbilt connections within it, has also helped us gain the necessary traction to propel us forward. I am excited for Catherine to have a similar opportunity and can’t wait to see her be successful.”
Dudek and Lippmann are currently in the process of applying for an SBIR grant and hope to be able to continue advancing the company beyond the fellowship period after having benefitted from a two-year runway to get the company off the ground. “We all know that starting a company is a high-risk endeavor. We are incredibly excited to be able to facilitate taking a harder look at some of the great ideas and technologies being generated at Vanderbilt University. Regardless of whether a viable company is ultimately formed, this is a win-win situation, both for the biomedical postdoctoral fellow who gets superb entrepreneurial training and the Vanderbilt research community who benefit from dedicated effort evaluating a potentially commercially viable new technology,” said Gould.
“We are grateful to Dean John Kuriyan, PhD, of the School of Medicine Basic Sciences for his support in continuing this exciting initiative, as well as the CTTC, the Wond’ry and Drs. Neuert and Lippmann for their contributions to training and mentoring of the fellows in the program.”