NUCATS works to foster biomedical innovation and entrepreneurship to help you catalyze your research towards the marketplace. We partner with Northwestern’s Innovations and New Ventures Office (INVO) to help evaluate the commercial potential of your research and connect you with resources to assist with further development of your technology. We can also recommend pilot grants, potential partnerships, and other commercialization-focused funding opportunities that align with your goals. NUCATS offers the following services that will help take your research from benchside to bedside.
Innovation & Commercialization Consultation
This service supports teams across the Northwestern ecosystem who want to translate their research into real-world products. Whether your technology is already in an advanced stage or you simply just have an idea, we provide support, guidance, and connections to help you meet both short- and long-term developmental milestones. Request a consultation to discuss any of the below topics, and more:
- Protecting your intellectual property
- Copyrights
- Out-licensing technologies to commercialization partners
- Starting a company
- Resources for entrepreneurship
Request an Innovation & Commercialization Consultation
NUCATS & INVO Translational Research Office Hours (NITRO)
NUCATS and INVO are pleased to host monthly collaborative office hours, designed to support academic innovators across the Northwestern University campus. Office hours are typically hosted on the last Wednesday of each month, between noon and 1 p.m. Each session consists of educational content surrounding translational research and commercialization, followed by time for questions and discussion, including time for individual conversation.
Subscribe to the NUCATS Minute newsletter for more information about upcoming sessions and links to register.
Past NITRO Talks Questions?
Innovation and New Ventures Office (INVO)
NUCATS partners with INVO in the Center for Translational Innovation (CTI). INVO is Northwestern’s technology transfer office that focuses on identifying technologies with commercial potential, increasing their value through intellectual property protection, and supporting commercialization through licensing, new ventures and partnering. Together, NUCATS and INVO help support the growing culture of commercialization and entrepreneurship at Northwestern.
Have an invention or technology to disclose? Submit an invention disclosure to INVO using the Inventor Portal.
The Querrey InQbation Lab
The Querrey InQbation Lab (The "Q") is Northwestern's hub for entrepreneurship resources and space that supports Northwestern scientists in turning breakthrough discoveries into real-world impact. The Q provides a home for highly entrepreneurial faculty, researchers, students, and early-stage, science-driven startups to catalyze scientific discoveries into economic growth and opportunities for the Evanston and Chicago communities.
- The Q offers a number of programs aimed to help Northwestern students, pre-venture teams, and startups in various aspects of entrepreneurially-focused education and commercialization efforts.
- The Q provides private and shared spaces, including offices and lab space for resident startup companies. Foundries, conference rooms, classrooms and collaborative workspaces are also available to the broader Northwestern community.
- Northwestern’s entrepreneurial faculty and resident startups can take advantage of resources offered through the Q, including mentorship, legal assistance, discounts, and funding.
N.XT Funding
The N.XT Fund is a $10M gap fund that supports work related to product validation, prototyping, and market identification for Northwestern’s early-stage startups.
Ryan Acceleration Fund
The Pat & Shirley Ryan Family Research Acceleration Fund provides seed grants to Northwestern University faculty to speed up the commercialization of innovative and high-potential research in the life sciences. The Fund seeks to advance translational research discoveries in both engineering and medicine with the potential to have a meaningful and immediate impact on society.
Chicago Biomedical Consortium
Backed by the Searle Funds at the Chicago Community Trust, the Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC) works to stimulate collaboration among scientists at Northwestern University, The University of Chicago, the University of Illinois Chicago and other Chicagoland institutions to accelerate discovery and expand the Chicago based life sciences ecosystem to transform life science research into biomedical applications, create Chicagoland opportunities for all, and improve the health of humankind.
An arm of the CBC – the CBC Hub for Innovative Technology and Entrepreneurship in the Sciences (CBC-HITES) – is funded by the NIH Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) program and housed in Northwestern Medicine’s Comprehensive Transplant Center. CBC-HITES provides academic innovators from nine Chicagoland institutions with the support needed to develop scientific and technical discoveries into biomedical applications. Hubs are designed to provide product development education, industry connections, project management, and funding necessary to develop biomedical applications.
Pilot Grant Funding
NUCATS directly administers several pilot and seed grant funding programs.
Core Facilities
NUCATS investigators also have access to a wide variety of research cores that can help foster their entrepreneurship; browse the links below for more information:
