On Jan. 29, Cornell University’s Center for Technology Licensing (CTL) hosted its third annual Ignite Connect virtual partnering forum. The event brought together sixteen teams of Cornell presenters and more than 100 investors and corporate partners to offer pre-seed and seed-stage engagement. Among the presenters are six Weill Cornell innovators and founders whose startups were built on foundational Weill Cornell technology. They pitched their commercialization strategies in the digital innovation, therapeutics and MedTech tracks to seek additional funding and external collaboration to move their technologies to the next value inflection point.
Presenters were primarily drawn from Ignite Cornell Lab to Market program participants, or awardees of the Enterprise Innovation Catalyst Fund, both of which provide proof-of-concept funding and early venture support to accelerate the translation of Cornell research into commercial products or services.
As Alexandra Cantley, a partner at Polaris Partners and a member of the Ignite external advisory committee, pointed out in the spotlight conversation, investors are looking for energized entrepreneurs who want to build something meaningful and align their technologies with unmet needs in health care. She also addressed the importance of platform technologies in early-stage ventures.
The showcased Weill Cornell startups meet many of these investor requirements. The digital and MedTech innovations attempt to break down access-to-care barriers and improve quality and efficiency of care; the therapeutic innovations are platform programs that could be applied to multiple disease indications.
Sudhin Shah, Associate Professor of Neuroscience in Radiology & CEO of Cognitive Signals Inc.
Cognitive Signals is trying to solve one of critical care’s biggest unmet needs – assessing cognition when patients can’t respond. The current standard of bedside behavioral exams (e.g. “Blink if you can hear me”) fails when patients with intact cognition can’t produce behavior. It also leads to a high misdiagnosis rate of 40%. Cognitive Signals is developing a diagnostic platform that measures the brain’s responses to natural spoken language and uses large language models to interpret EEG signals and identify neural signatures of understanding. This platform could extend beyond clinical care. It could be applied to detect neurodegeneration and developmental disorders, assess learning and track anesthesia recovery.
Nicole Lustgarten, Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences alumna and CEO of IVSonance Biomedical
IVSonance is the recipient of the 2025 Susan and Gene D. Resnick ’70, MD ’74 Prize for Excellence in Entrepreneurship, a Cornell University-wide competition that awards a startup $10,000 to commercialize a technology with intercampus collaboration. Its product is a novel contactless acoustic tweezer that promises to simplify and improve the consistency and reproducibility of oocyte denudation, the egg cleaning procedure, in IVF. Oocyte denudation is currently performed manually by embryologists with decades-old micromanipulators and technology, which is inefficient, error-prone and expensive. IVSonance addresses this bottleneck in IVF scalability by integrating their technology directly into the warm plates already used in labs. Pre-clinical IVF studies have validated that their acoustic approach is as efficient as traditional methods and safe for translation into clinical practice.
Jason Blain, CEO of AnnuNovo - Filling the Gap in Spine Care
AnnuNovo is a newly launched company based on a minimally invasive treatment for herniated (slipped) spinal discs and backpain that was invented by Dr. Roger Härtl, the Hansen-MacDonald Professor of Neurological Surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Dr. Lawrence Bonassar, the Daljit S. and Elaine Sarkaria Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University. Unlike the standard treatment that removes the bulging annulus and leaves a hole in the disc, AnnuNovo’s technology repairs the spinal disc early in herniation after discectomy. It injects a high-density collagen gel into the annulus and then cures it with a 480 nanometer blue light to solidify the gel and restore the disc’s structure.
Mohammed Fouda, Fellow in Neurological Surgery
Dr. Fouda and his collaborators are creating a magnet-actuated craniofacial (MAC) distraction system that could be applied across craniofacial, orthopedic and spine surgeries. This fully internal distraction system aims to replace the traditional external hardware used to treat craniosynostosis, the early fusion of a baby's skull bones, and other craniofacial abnormalities. Current devices require metal activation ports protruding through a child’s scalp, which carries high risks of infection, mechanical failure and significant emotional and practical burdens for families. The new system uses an implanted magnet and gearbox that can be adjusted non‑invasively with an external handheld driver, eliminating the skin‑penetrating components that cause most complications. Early prototyping and cadaver testing have shown reliable, incremental distraction and stable fixation.
Kirsten Flowers, MBA, CEO of Chiara Biosciences
Chiara Biosciences has an exclusive license to the innovative targeted protein degradation platform technology developed by co-founder, Dr. Francis Barany, professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine. This technology uses two small molecules that combine inside a cell, one binding to the target protein and one binding to the E3 ligase. They come together to destroy the target protein. Compared with the first-generation of targeted protein degradation technology that used large molecules with a linker, Dr. Barany’s innovation has the advantage of lighter weight, easier oral administration, better PK/PD to get into the target cells and penetration of the blood brain barrier. Chiara Biosciences is applying this technology to advance their own pipeline of cancer drugs. In addition, they’re exploring its potential as a platform that screens new drug targets against the E3 ligase ligands to identify the optimal combination for the best degradation results of a protein.
Li Gan, the Burton P. and Judith B. Resnick Distinguished Professor in Neurodegenerative Diseases and director of the Helen and Robert Appel Alzheimer’s Disease Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine, Co-Founder of Aeton Therapeutics
Building on extensive work from the labs of Dr. Gan and her co-founder Dr. Subhash Sinha, professor of research in neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medicine, Aeton Therapeutics has identified four lead human cGAS inhibitors that are blood-brain barrier permeable and possess superior brain pharmacokinetic properties. These inhibitors target the cGAS-STING pathway, a key driver of neuroinflammation and neuronal injury. Dr. Gan and her team have demonstrated proof-of-concept across multiple preclinical models in disorders such as Dravet syndrome, ALS, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. They plan to complete IND‑enabling studies, beginning with rare neurological diseases before expanding to broader neurodegenerative indications.
Jonathan Villena-Vargas, Assistant Professor of Clinical Cardiothoracic Surgery
Dr. Villena-Vargas’ patent-pending technology attempts to make engineered T cell therapy for solid tumors more scalable and effective. He discovered that T cells collected from benign draining lymph nodes, which surgeons remove to decide the stage of metastatic cancer, show promises as a cancer therapeutic and platform. These cells have stem-like phenotype, recognize multiple tumor antigens and can be manufactured in a week or two. Importantly, they don’t require the injection of toxic IL-2 signaling molecule into the patient to activate and grow. Dr. Villena-Vargas’ research team has proven efficacy of this model in preclinical study, and transduction of these cells work in lung cancer patients. They’re optimizing the technology and have established a GMP closed-system manufacturing protocol.
This year’s Ignite Connect forum concluded with strong momentum, as attendees scheduled one-on-one conversations to explore partnerships and next steps. It achieved the goal of building lasting relationships and helping innovators connect with the right collaborators.
Watch the Ignite Connect 2026 recordings on CTL’s YouTube channel.