Aperiomics has been awarded a Phase IB grant through the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, bringing its current award total to nearly $180,000 from this program. The project, under the direction of Aperiomics Chief Science Officer Eduardo Castro-Nallar, PhD, is titled SBIR Phase I: Rapid Pathogen Diagnostics and Biosurveillance Using Multiplexed High-throughput Sequencing.
This SBIR program offers short-term feasibility grants ($150,000-225,000) to help early-stage companies fund research and development. As follow-up, additional funding is available through Phase II grants to allow companies to focus on scale and development in the process of bringing their product or service to market. Phase II grants are longer-term and up to $750,000. Aperiomics will submit a Phase II grant proposal in the next funding cycle.
A key objective for the SBIR program is to make entrepreneurial science companies more attractive to investors and to future partners and customers by reducing risk. According to Aperiomics CEO Crystal Icenhour, PhD, “One of the added benefits to receiving this money is the ‘NSF seal of approval’ that can have a positive influence on strategic partners and investors. The grant also qualifies us for additional matching funds from the State of Virginia and the Virginia Biosciences Health Research Corporation.”
Read more at the Aperiomics website
