Fast Forward Medical Innovation offers a wide range of supportive programs to help life science innovators accomplish their goals. We're interested in your feedback in order to help guide the development of future innovation programs and resources.

Please complete this short survey to help determine how we can continue to best meet your needs.

Do you have an innovative idea? Are you looking for funding, collaboration, and mentorship?

FFMI fastPACE is a four-week biomedical and commercialization course designed for life science innovators with an early-stage project. The course helps participants prepare a successful business case for funding and development partnerships. FFMI fastPACE is open to biomedical innovators across the University of Michigan, and across the state, region, and nation.

Registration is now available for the Spring 2022 cohort, to be held virtually, beginning Friday, April 29. Sign up today! Registration closes on Friday, April 15 at 11:59pm.

Questions? Email Jon Servoss, FFMI Director of Commercialization Education.

Drug Discovery Guide is an online course designed for physician-scientists, basic scientists, and postdoctoral and other trainees that teaches the individual steps and critical stages for any drug discovery project, with a particular focus on projects being conducted at the University of Michigan. The course is a collaboration between Fast Forward Medical Innovation and Michigan Drug Discovery, with support from Innovation Partnerships.

Drug Discovery Guide features 15 experts from across the U-M drug discovery ecosystem who instruct on four primary units: Introduction to Drug Discovery, Assessing Commercial Potential, Advancing Drug Discovery Projects, and Entering the Clinical Phase. The lessons concentrate primarily on small molecule therapeutics, however, many of the topics apply equally to other kinds of drugs, including antibodies and RNA.

The course can be navigated freely, allowing users to select the lesson topics that are especially pertinent to their research. A certificate of completion is available with the course.

Questions? Visit the website or contact Samantha Cook, Commercialization Education Coordinator.

Coming soon! An in-person companion course that teaches the fundamental stages of academic drug discovery through guest lectures and case studies. Join our newsletter to stay up-to-date on open enrollment.

Looking for feedback and input on your biomedical innovation? Join the FFMI team for Innovation Studio, virtual office hours that give life science innovators of all levels the chance to address project needs, challenges, or questions.

Participants can get individual feedback on:

The Innovation Studio is available for 30-minute consultations via Zoom every third Tuesday of the month. The next available consultations will take place Tuesday, February 15, between 2:00pm-3:30pm. Space is limited.

ONL Therapeutics, a Michigan Biomedical Venture Fund portfolio company, has just closed on its second tranche of the Company's Series B financing after meeting important milestones. The total proceeds raised in the Series B was $46.9 million.

ONL Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that develops novel therapies for protecting the vision of patients with retinal disease.

Congratulations!

Interested in learning more about a career opportunity in strategic research administration for Ph.D.s and postdocs at U-M? The UMMS Research Administration Fellowship is a two-year paid, full-time position, starting this September, where fellows learn to connect science and business competencies to engage in innovative projects that enhance biomedical research. Applications open Tuesday, February 1.

RSVP here to get links to our upcoming virtual informational offerings.

Research Development, part of Grant Services and Analysis in the Medical School Office of Research, is hosting Dr. Thomas Greenwell for an upcoming lunch and learn webinar. Dr. Greenwell is a Program Director at the National Eye Institute (NEI) at NIH, and he’ll talk about the role of an NIH Program Officer (PO) and provide “tips & tricks” for contacting and interacting with POs at NIH. He will also answer questions from event participants.

Join the Clinical Trials Support Office for the latest installment of Working with Industry on February 10 from 5:00pm–6:30pm where we’ll speak with the research teams behind two Michigan Medicine virtual trials, MiPACT and CHIEF-HF. In this ever-changing technological landscape, virtual clinical trials offer new opportunities for research teams and even proved to be an advantage when many traditional in-person trials were put on pause at the start of the pandemic.

Teams interested in switching to the virtual space may be particularly interested as we hope to discuss the types of research questions that are amenable to virtual implementation, and outline key logistical considerations and requirements related to team infrastructure, informed consent, data collection, and regulatory requirements.

The 2022 Massey TBI Grand Challenge kicks off on March 3, and it's going to be bigger and better than ever. The Michigan Center for Integrative Research in Critical Care (MCIRCC) is thrilled to announce that, this year, there will be a grand total of $1 MILLION available to fund multidisciplinary teams proposing high-risk ideas and innovations addressing the golden hours of traumatic brain injury.

To better navigate the complexities of the U-M biomedical research enterprise, visit the Research Project Lifecycle. This interactive tool provides an overview of the resources available to you, not only within the Medical School Office of Research but also across the University of Michigan.