FIRST Diagnostics, a company centered around a COX-2 Cancer Diagnostic developed by Vanderbilt Professor Larry Marnett, Ph.D., was the winner of the 2015 Tech Venture Challenge. The student competition, supported by CTTC and presented by Life Science Tennessee Academic Alliance, is an annual event that teams students with a Vanderbilt researcher and business mentor. The teams then develop commercialization plans for the researcher's technology and present the plans before a panel of judges. Four business plans were presented at the fifth annual TechVenture Challenge.
"Every year it seems that the presentations get better and the students have a firmer grasp on the process as well as what is required for development of a technology within a startup," said Tom Utley, Ph.D., licensing officer with CTTC. "This speaks to not only the continued generosity of the community, providing their time and expertise to help these students refine their plan, but also to the students themselves and their ability to grasp concepts not always within their normal area of expertise quickly."
FIRST Diagnostics was comprised of Kelsey Beavers, Samantha Sarett, Elizabeth Conrad, Hailey Verano, and Michael Feldkamp, representing Vanderbilt University Medical School, Vanderbilt University School of Engineering and Vanderbilt Law School. The event was sponsored by Bradley Arant Boult Cummings Law Firm and held at the firm's Nashville office.
About Marnett's COX-2 enzyme: The COX-2 enzyme catalyzes the committed step in the production of prostaglandins and is the molecular target for non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Functional analysis of COX-2 by structure-guided mutagenesis has uncovered new strategies for synthesizing COX-2 inhibitors and has suggested new biological roles for the enzyme, which is overexpressed in many cancers. We have developed a small molecule, fluorocoxib A, that selectively binds and inhibits the COX-2 enzyme. This novel COX-2 detection agent has high potential for translation to clinical use as a cancer diagnostic for improved tumor detection in humans.