Enterprise Innovation brings internal and external collaboration opportunities to our faculty and trainees. These programs provide extra funding and opportunities to work with industry to advance faculty/trainees' translational research projects.
Please contact Dr. James Bellush at james.bellush@cornell.edu if you have any questions or need guidance on your application.
1. Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration: FTD Biomarkers Initiative
Eligibility: Provides funding for researchers seeking to advance the understanding and clinical utilization of comprehensive FTD biomarkers. Specific focus on developing tools for neurology and specialty clinics that will simplify, accelerate, and improve accuracy of FTD diagnosis.
- Focus on proposals which will enhance: patient screening / stratification, diagnostic accuracy, and subtyping of pathophysiology to inform critical care
- Submission Details: Detailed grant application instructions can be found at RFP website. All application materials must be submitted through AFTD portal.
- Award Details: $250,000 – $700,000 for two years (dependent upon development stage and project scope)
- Submission Deadline: May 9, 2025
2. 
Sanofi: 2025-2026 Innovation Awards (iAwards)
- Eligibility: Sanofi iAwards initiative is a multi-institutional partnership program designed to support collaborations with academic investigators to accelerate innovative early stage, disease-relevant research towards the clinic. With this program, Sanofi aims to fund cutting-edge translational research that can contribute to our early-stage pipeline and ultimately benefit patients.
- 2025-2026 Therapeutic Interest Areas:
- Genomic Medicine: Non-viral delivery of genetic medicine to CNS and muscle, LNP formulation and analytics, predictive models of LNP and AAV immunogenicity
- Immunology & Inflammation: Senescence and inflammaging, complement system and ophthalmic disorders, immune checkpoint bispecifics, mechanistic study of immune “re-set”, disease modification in dermatology (AD, HS, vitiligo), respiratory (asthma, COPD), GI (IBD, celiac)
- Oncology: New targets and surface markers in MM, AML, GI, lung, and pediatric cancers, immune cell engagers (NK), tumor microenvironment targeting (myeloid, macrophages, fibroblasts), in vivo delivery, IO models
- Targets and Systems Biology: AI/ML models for multi-omics target identification, single-cell / spatial transcriptomics in respiratory and autoimmune (HS, atopic dermatitis, SLE, asthma, COPD), target ID in nodal immune pathways, AI-driven indication expansion
- Rare and Neurological Disease: Biology and targeted delivery of muscle and CNS therapeutics, targets and models for genetically defined CNS and musculoskeletal disease, targets for neuroprotection in neurodegenerative disease, therapeutic concepts for proteinopathies, biomarkers for neurodegenerative (computational algorithms for precision neurology, biomarkers, metabolic markers)
- Award Details: $150,000 for 1 year (includes institutional direct and indirect costs)
- Submission Details: Please contact James Bellush (james.bellush@cornell.edu) for questions about eligibility and application materials. ***Enterprise Innovation office is required to submit pre-proposals on behalf of investigators.
- Award Timelines:
- Pre-Proposal Deadline: May 19, 2025
- Notification of Invited Full Proposals: June 30, 2025
- Invited Full Proposal Deadline: September 5, 2025
3. Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE): Catalyst Award
Eligibility: Independent researchers seeking funding to accelerate discovery / development of transformative therapies in epilepsy. Award is designed to support acquisition of data necessary to attract larger commercial funding opportunities for translational therapy.
- Submission Details: Portal opens on Tuesday, May 13. Please find relevant application information here.
- Award Details: $250,000 – $250,000 for two years
- Submission Deadline: June 10, 2025