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. 
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
2. American Cancer Society: Extramural Discovery Science Accelerator Award
- Eligibility: Independent investigators seeking funding support for key experiments that will advance commercialization efforts of ongoing translational cancer projects. Proposals should include commercially focused plans to license technology into established company or start-up if milestones successfully reached. Projects in scope include:
- Dosing, toxicity, or efficacy testing
- Testing of patient samples to correlate clinical outcome
- Technologies for healthcare delivery
- Submission Details: Application materials available on ProposalCentral
- Award Details: Budgets up to $75,000 total costs for one-year term (no IDC)
Submission Deadline: June 1, 2025
3. CITEC: Point of Care Tools to Improve Early Cancer Detection
- Eligibility: The Center for Innovation and Translation of Point-of-Care Technologies for Expanded Cancer Care Access (CITEC) seeks to support and accelerate the development and adoption of affordable new technologies to improve the early detection of pre-cancer and cancer in community and home settings, including hard-to-reach and rural settings in the US.
- Award support for point-of-care tests to improve screening, early detection and/or diagnosis of pre-cancers and early cancers that arise in epithelial tissues in organ sites accessible for early detection.
- Priority for:
- Cancers currently diagnosed radiologically (e.g. lung, breast)
- Anal neoplasia screening
- Histopathologic diagnosis of cancer at POC
- Submission Details: Applications must be submitted through online portal
- Award Details: Budgets up to $150,000 for 12-month projects
Submission Deadline: June 6, 2025
4. PORTENT: Point of Care Innovation Award
- Eligibility: The Point-of-Care Technologies for Nutrition, Infection, and Cancer (PORTENT) Center is a one-of-a-kind network of clinical, training, and device development facilities with expertise in point-of-care diagnostics, their application and commercialization.
- Innovation Award is intended to support commercialization activities for point-of-care diagnostic technologies addressing specific issues in nutrition, infectious disease and cancer
- Submission Details: Applications must be submitted through online portal
- Award Details: Budgets up to $100,000 for 12-month projects
Submission Deadline: June 6, 2025
5. 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
6. Michelson Foundation: Next Generation Grants
- Eligibility: Annual award supporting early-career investigators working to advance human immunology, vaccine discovery, and immunotherapy research for major global diseases.
- In-scope projects will aim to tackle existing roadblocks for human vaccine development and expand limited understanding of immune biology to enable successful vaccine and immunotherapy development
- Proposals must be from investigators under 35 years of age
- Submission Details: Applications must be submitted through online portal
- Award Details: Budgets up to $150,000 for 12-month projects
Submission Deadline: June 22, 2025