The Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship hosted its Celebration of Innovation on April 25, 2023, at the Petersen Events Center Campus View Club. The event recognizes the accomplishments of Pitt innovators and regional businesses assisted by the university’s Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence who are making an impact through the commercial translation of their ideas and innovations.
We will be featuring some of this year’s special award winners over the next few weeks, beginning with the 2023 Emerging Innovator Award recipient, Leah Byrne.
The Emerging Innovator Award is presented to an early-to-mid-career Pitt faculty who has demonstrated an extraordinary dedication to innovation commercialization. Dr. Byrne is an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Her research lab develops gene therapies for retinal disease. Approximately one in 3,000 people worldwide is affected by inherited retinal degenerations. Byrne’s lab engineers viral vectors with new abilities and improved capabilities to deliver therapeutic genes to the retina that allow for increased precision of gene delivery and protein expression. Additionally, a main focus of the lab is developing and implementing gene editing approaches using CRISPR/Cas9, a powerful and widely applicable molecular tool used to directly rewrite the genome.
In July 2022, the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche partnered with Avista Therapeutics—a spinout based on Byrne’s work and co-founded with José-Alain Sahel and Paul Sieving—to further develop these therapies. She has had her technology licensed to three other startups.
If you are a Pitt innovator ready to explore the commercial potential of your innovation, you are encouraged to participate in an NSF I-Corps short course. These free, month-long virtual courses will help you discover the value your innovation may provide to potential customers. The courses are offered more than 20 times throughout the year to fit your busy schedule. Learn more and register.