January 10, 2018
“Lunch & Learn” at the University of Illinois at Chicago
CBC started off the new year with its third Lunch & Learn event which took place in the Molecular Biology Research Building at the University of Illinois at Chicago on January 8, 2018. The “Lunch & Learn” series was inaugurated on September 2017 by Jim Audia, CBC Executive Director, with the first meeting held at The University of Chicago. The second meeting of the series was held at the UIC Forum on November 17, 2017 as an event built into CBC’s Annual Symposium program. Both “Lunch & Learn” events have revolved around the introductions of new CBC programs and the CBC Accelerator Network (CBCAN).
Consistent with the first two “Lunch & Learn” events, the latest meeting, organized by Brian Kay, CBC Scientific Director at UIC, provided a setting for the CBC community to voice their needs “on the go”, to offer new ideas and to provide feedback about the Phase 2 programs with focus especially on the newly opened CBC Accelerator Award program. The event was attended by close to 20 UIC faculty members. Jim started off by introducing himself and Nancy Tyrrell, CBC Associate Director of Translational Activities. He then spoke of his vision for the Chicago region, gave a presentation on how the CBC could help realize it and briefly touched on the new initiatives for Phase 2. Nancy took over afterwards to describe in detail what the Accelerator Award program entails, the application process for the Spring Round and how the upcoming CBC Accelerator Network (CBCAN) meetings will be utilized as a platform where Accelerator Award candidates and future Entrepreneurial Fellows (EF) will give presentations to a diverse audience of industry experts, university tech transfer officers, researchers and others from the local and extended biomedical ecosystem.
The presentations prompted lively discussions during the Q&A session, which brought forth many valuable insights of the faculty ranging from how to streamline the application process to the potential challenges that the implementation and running of the two programs could pose. The CBC is appreciative of the comments and recommendations provided by the luncheon participants and is looking forward to continuing the conversation.
