TARA Biosystems, Inc. Secures Exclusive Worldwide License to Columbia University Intellectual Property Relating to Engineered Human Cardiac Tissues

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 28, 2019 / TARA Biosystems, Inc. (TARA), a company offering physiologically relevant human “heart-on-a-chip” tissue models for cardiac risk assessment and drug discovery applications, today announced the execution of an exclusive worldwide license agreement with Columbia University for intellectual property relating to engineered human heart tissues.

The licensed technology was developed at Columbia University in the laboratory of Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, Ph.D., an early pioneer and esteemed global expert in engineering functional human tissues for regenerative medicine. Her work has been published in over 390 journal articles (including Nature, Cell, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, Nature Protocols, Science Advances, PNAS, Cell Stem Cell, Science Translational Medicine). With over 42,500 citations and impact factor h=118, she is one of the most highly cited individuals across all scientific and engineering disciplines.

Dr. Vunjak-Novakovic is appointed University Professor, the highest academic rank at Columbia University, and the first engineer in the University’s history to receive this highest distinction. She is also the Mikati Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia Engineering (The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science), Professor of Medical Sciences at Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Director of Columbia’s Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in April 2019 and has previously been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (2012), the National Academy of Medicine (2014), and the National Academy of Inventors (2014).

Dr. Vunjak-Novakovic is a scientific co-founder of TARA Biosystems along with her former trainee Dr. Milica Radisic, whose groundbreaking research is the foundation of the patented Biowire™ II platform. The Biowire™ II platform, for which TARA is the exclusive worldwide licensee, enables TARA’s market-leading solutions for cardiac risk assessment and drug discovery applications.

Dr. Vunjak-Novakovic commented, “I have great confidence in the TARA team and their ability to deliver on the promise of our intellectual property. We are inspired by the same mission to help improve the lives of patients and their families through safer and more effective therapies.”

“We are very pleased to enter into this exclusive license with TARA, which has been a core part of the rapidly growing NYC life sciences start-up ecosystem,” said Orin Herskowitz, Executive Director of Columbia Technology Ventures, the technology transfer arm of Columbia University. “We are excited to be a part of TARA’s current and future success.”

“Columbia has been a great champion of TARA since the very earliest days of the company. We are delighted to have a formal relationship that allows us to further leverage the collaborative ties we already enjoy,” stated Misti Ushio, Ph.D., CEO of TARA Biosystems.

About TARA Biosystems

TARA Biosystems is a human heart-on-a-chip company headquartered in New York City which has developed a proprietary platform of cardiac tissue models. Through these physiologically human-relevant predictive models, the company offers a variety of services and solutions that can decisively evaluate the safety and efficacy of novel biopharmaceutical drugs and strengthen the drug discovery, and development pipeline. For more information, please visit www.tarabiosystems.com.

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SOURCE: TARA Biosystems, Inc.

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