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UNIVERSITY-BASED TECHNOLOGY ACCELERATORS 351

Figure 1. Valley of Death for innovations.

rare for faculty inventors in an academic setting to teams as they work to bridge the Valley of Death and
have previous entrepreneurial experience. Likewise, move promising medical technologies from the lab
students who invent a technology during their studies to patient use.
and want to commercialize it often lack the entre- The Coulter Foundation was established in 1998
preneurial skills and market knowledge needed to after its namesake, Wallace H. Coulter. Wallace was
succeed. Thus, accelerators can provide participants the founder of Coulter Corporation, a leading global
with needed skills and the means to obtain market diagnostics company, and a prolific inventor and
knowledge while also supplying some of the valida- entrepreneur whose inventions led to significant
tion and prototype funding required. When it works, breakthroughs in science and medicine. In addition
the result is a system capable of getting more and to the program at Columbia, the Coulter Foundation
better technologies out of the lab at a faster rate. has funded over 20 similar programs and initiatives
at universities across the country, helping to sup-
CONTEXT: HOW DID THESE SPECIFIC port education, mentoring, project management,
PROGRAMS COME ABOUT, AND WHAT and funding for promising translational projects. By
HAVE THEY ACCOMPLISHED? fostering collaboration between biomedical engineers
Columbia’s biomedical accelerator program, and clinicians while focusing specifically on the com-
Columbia-Coulter Translational Research Partner- mercialization of medical devices and diagnostics and
ship (Columbia-Coulter), was established in 2011 health care information technology, Coulter Foun-
through a generous five-year, $5 million grant from dation programs have served as an effective catalyst
the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, with the ulti- in the development and validation of biomedical
mate goal of developing health care solutions that technologies.
address unmet or underserved clinical needs and lead Now entering its sixth year, the Columbia-Coulter
to improvements in patient care. This is accomplished program has provided education and in-kind
by supporting interdisciplinary, cross-departmental resources to over 95 clinician-engineer-led teams