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The basics:

• Funding is helping university researchers commercialize discoveries
• Rutgers cardiologist developing AI tool to predict heart attack risk
• NJIT Venture Studio launched Pure Trace Labs for rapid PFAS testing
• Princeton-linked PolyGone raises $4M for microplastics filtration tech

A cardiovascular surgeon walks into the operating room armed with more than three decades of experience. He also carries something new: an AI-powered imaging tool that analyzes vast stores of clinical data to predict, with striking accuracy, whether a patient is at imminent risk of a heart attack.

That tool isn’t coming from a Silicon Valley lab. It’s coming from Rutgers University — and it’s about to spawn a company.

The still-to-be-named startup is being launched by Dr. Partho Sengupta, Rutgers chair of cardiology, with support from the university’s Office for Research. It’s one of dozens of faculty-driven ventures moving through Rutgers’ commercialization pipeline — a system designed to translate discoveries made in university labs into products, companies and jobs across New Jersey.

“We really want to take the knowledge that our faculty are generating and use that to solve problems that New Jersey, American and global businesses face every day,” said Michael Zwick, senior vice president for research at Rutgers OfR. “How do we take those ideas and translate them into devices, into inventions, into new companies, ultimately leading to jobs?”

Last year, Rutgers faculty received nearly $1 billion in sponsored research awards across more than 4,200 grants — a portfolio spanning life sciences, engineering, agriculture and behavioral sciences.

The OfR commercializes that research through two interlocking units. The technology transfer office, led by OfR Executive Director of Technology Transfer Deborah Perez Fernandez, evaluates faculty disclosures, pursues patents and other IP protections, and licenses innovations to existing companies.

Commercial potential

“When researchers think they have an innovative idea, they disclose to our office and we perform a formal assessment,” Perez Fernandez said. “We look at the commercial potential as well as patentability or IP protection — and hopefully all of that leads to a license agreement that turns the research into a product that can benefit society.”

When faculty want to launch their own ventures, they work with OfR Executive Director of New Ventures Vince Smeraglia. His team’s approach rests on three pillars: an entrepreneurship boot camp, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, called I-CORPS; early-stage proof-of-concept grants disbursed by Rutgers ranging from $25,000 to $150,000; and active connections to venture capital firms.

“The mission of new ventures, in partnership with tech transfer, is to take these newly formed ideas and help faculty members, postdocs, and graduate students launch new companies to start the commercialization process,” Smeraglia said.

A key element of the boot camp is customer discovery — requiring every participant to interview 25 potential customers before finalizing their product approach.

Real-world results

The model has produced notable results. PTC Therapeutics was launched by a Rutgers professor, went public and now develops treatments for conditions including Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Visikol, launched by two graduate students who commercialized a tissue visualization technology, was later acquired by a larger life sciences company.

“It was a very successful story — students who took the innovation out of the lab and into the commercial world,” Perez Fernandez said.

Life sciences and AI are the fastest-growing areas, said Zwick, reflecting New Jersey’s pharmaceutical heritage — 14 of the world’s 20 largest pharma companies operate in the state. Rutgers researchers developed a continuous manufacturing process for pharmaceuticals, adopted by Johnson & Johnson for an HIV medicine, that prevents entire production batches from being scrapped due to contamination. Faculty also saved New Jersey’s basil industry by breeding disease-resistant crop varieties.

For startups that can’t afford standard licensing fees, Rutgers accepts a small equity stake –typically 5% to 10% – in lieu of cash. “We work closely with the tech transfer group, and in lieu of big cash payments, we’ll take a small amount of cash and an equity position in the startup, so that we don’t take away their R&D budgets,” Smeraglia explained.

Rutgers sells those positions at the first opportunity rather than holding long-term. “We’re a public university,” Zwick said. “We don’t think it’s our mission to be a long-term equity holder in startup companies.”

Looking ahead, the university is also helping recruit international companies to New Jersey. A South Korean firm developing rapid blood-based cancer diagnostics is now considering locating its U.S. operations at Rutgers’ new Helix One facility in New Brunswick — an $800 million research and incubator complex opening this July.

“Whether it’s Newark, Camden or New Brunswick, we want to be helpful to the entire innovation ecosystem across the state of New Jersey,” Zwick said. “That is a key part of our public service role.”

A forever solution

Other educational institutions are also fueling the success of startups. When an NJIT chemistry professor developed a way to detect PFAS – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, so-called “forever chemicals” found in waterproof clothing, nonstick cookware, food packaging and drinking water – in less than three minutes, the question wasn’t whether the technology was impressive. It was whether it could become a business.

The answer, it turns out, is yes. And the organization helping make that happen is the New Jersey Innovation Institute Venture Studio, a first-of-its-kind program launched in May 2025 that takes promising intellectual property from New Jersey Institute of Technology’s research labs and builds companies around it.

The PFAS detection technology, invented by Professor of Chemistry Hao Chen, became the foundation for Pure Trace Labs. The Venture Studio’s first portfolio company, the business launched in October 2025. Traditional PFAS testing methods required multiple steps, specialized sample preparation, and significant time and cost. Chen’s method requires none of that.

“It is an opportunity to allow consumers who have growing awareness about the risks of PFAS – which are unfortunately very prevalent in our environment, including in our water, our clothing, and our food packaging – to access that type of testing in a broader way,” said MJ Durkin, director of the Venture Studio.

Pure Trace Labs is just one example of what the Venture Studio is designed to do. With a $10 million fund and a five-year investment cycle, the studio plans to build two to three companies per year, investing up to $1 million per company. Two additional companies are expected to go before the board for investment approval this spring and summer.

Co-founder functions

Durkin said that the depth of involvement the Venture Studio takes on differentiates it from a conventional venture capital firm. The studio functions more like a co-founder than a checkwriter — providing not just capital, but go-to-market strategy, legal and accounting support, executive hiring, and access to NJII’s extensive network of corporate and health care partners.

“We’re looking for founders who want to work with us as a co-founder,” Durkin said. “Not just invest in the company and let them run with it, but provide strategic partnerships, support on go-to-market strategy, and that kind of wraparound servicing.”

One example of that wraparound support: Pure Trace Labs needed operational help in its early months. The Venture Studio arranged for an NJIT student – paid through the university’s existing Community Work Study Program – to support the company, at no cost to the startup.

“That’s something I don’t think anyone else can really offer because of our unique positioning,” Durkin said. “That type of strategic partnering is not something that comes with a standard venture capital check.”

The Venture Studio is also selective about what it pursues. With a $1 million maximum investment, it deliberately steers away from the headline-grabbing AI plays drawing billion-dollar rounds, focusing instead on applied technology with niche industry advantages — particularly in digital health care and environmental services where NJII already has established partner networks.

The Venture Studio is actively looking for the next opportunity to partner with entrepreneurs and researchers who have commercial-stage intellectual property. Notes Durkin, “We’re always open to meeting founders who want more than just a check.”

A Princeton story

In February, PolyGone Systems, closed a $4 million seed round; a fundraise that shined a fresh light on how one of New Jersey’s most storied universities has become a launchpad for high-impact entrepreneurial ventures. The cleantech company – co-founded in 2021 by Princeton School of Architecture graduates Nathaniel Banks, who serves as CEO, and Yidian Liu, who serves as chief operating officer – develops patented filtration systems capable of removing 98% of toxic microplastics from water at a cost it says is 90% lower than competing methods. PolyGone currently operates a wastewater removal pilot with the Atlantic County Utilities Authority and noted it has signed three new commercial deployments for 2026, targeting municipal treatment facilities, industrial water systems, and the food and beverage sector.

PolyGone’s founders originally enrolled in Princeton University’s I-Corps Northeast Hub, part of the nationwide NSF-funded network of universities formed to accelerate the economic impact of federally funded research. Its trajectory is exactly what the university’s innovation ecosystem is designed to produce, according to Princeton Vice Dean for Innovation Craig Arnold.

“There are various forms of partnerships that we engage with,” he detailed. “I would say that the driving factor for strong partnerships is an alignment of interests and goals.  In some cases, this may be around a particular research topic or technology challenge. In other cases, it might be around the commercialization and translation of research or intellectual property.”

As head of the university’s Office of Innovation, which was established in 2024, Arnold works closely with entrepreneurs, alumni, industry, and investors, collaborating across campus and with key offices, including technology licensing, corporate engagement, and the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council.