WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University researchers with patent-pending innovations for the agriculture, medical and autonomous transportation industries have received funding to further develop their work and bring it to the marketplace.

Researchers from the Bindley Bioscience Center and the College of Engineering have received more than $118,000 from the Trask Innovation Fund to make their work more attractive for commercial use.

The fund is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization. It awards up to $50,000 for short-term projects that enhance the commercial value of intellectual property. The application deadline for the next round of funding is Sept. 22.

The spring 2023 Trask Innovation Fund recipients, their projects and award amounts are:

‍Alina Alexeenko, College of Engineering, “Mobile Modular Demo Unit of Tunable RF Heating for Biologics Processing,” $25,000
‍Christina Ferreira, Bindley Bioscience Center, “Muscle Biomarkers to Discriminate Characteristics of the Meat,” $43,600.
‍Zubin Jacob, College of Engineering, “VGA Interface for High-Speed Thermal Imager at Room Temperature,” $50,000.


Freeze-drying pharmaceuticals

‍Alexeenko and her collaborators are using microwaves to make lyophilization, or freeze-drying, faster and more cost-effective in the transportation and storage of vaccines, injectable drug products and reagents for molecular diagnostics. The innovation could expand the use of the process and increase the availability of vaccines and biopharmaceuticals with a long shelf life not requiring frozen storage. Alexeenko is co-founder and co-director of LyoHUB, a university-industry center that improves freeze-drying technology to make food, pharmaceuticals and biotech products safer and more affordable.

“The Trask grant will allow us to design and build a mobile demonstration unit for RF heating for lyophilization that could be transported to potential industry users for on-site testing,” Alexeenko said. “Our goal is working with our commercial partner LyoWave Inc. to get early testing by industry on real products and de-risk the adoption of this new pharmaceutical manufacturing technology.”