Project Grant R43DK112475

Federal Grant Award Summary Zvelt Therapeutics Inc. received a $974,604 Project Grant award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases under the Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.847) on September 9, 2025. The award supports the development of REC2-Leptin/Dual Cassette, an innovative adipose-targeted gene therapy for treating lipodystrophy, a rare metabolic disorder characterized by abnormal or degenerative adipose tissue...

Federal Grant Award Summary United Biotherapeutics LLC received a $307,508 Project Grant award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) under the Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.847), effective September 11, 2025, through August 31, 2026. The award supports a Phase I Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) collaborative research project focused on developing engineered brown-like adipocyte transplants to...

Federal Grant Award Summary Rerx Therapeutics, Inc. received a $1,504,316 Project Grant award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) under the Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.847), effective September 10, 2025, with completion targeted for June 30, 2027. The award supports Phase II development and evaluation of RERX-001, an orally bioavailable small molecule therapeutic designed to address obesity and...

Federal Grant Award Summary Aavogen Inc. received a $350,000 Project Grant award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) under the Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.847), with an award date of September 5, 2025, and completion date of September 4, 2026. The funding supports preclinical validation research of AVGN7 (rAAV6:SMAD7), a novel gene therapeutic designed to enhance skeletal muscle mass and function...

Simmbion LLC was awarded a $255,136 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Small Business Technology Transfer program to develop a system for manufacturing drug therapies inside the human body. Over the one-year period from April 2022 to March 2023, the company will genetically engineer symbiotic blood organisms to express and secrete two therapeutic proteins - β-glucocerebrosidase to treat Gaucher's disease and insulin for diabetes treatment. In vitro and in vivo testing will...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) provides $275,000 to Targeting Systems to develop a novel intramuscular gene delivery platform capable of sustained expression and endogenous secretion of bispecific natural killer cell engager (BIKE) therapeutics to treat solid tumors like hepatocellular carcinoma. The platform aims to deliver BIKEs in a less invasive manner than current immunotherapies,...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $274,966 Project Grant to Remedium Bio Inc., a for-profit organization, under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) program. The grant supports the development of an adjustable gene therapy platform technology that will enable the use of genetic therapeutics beyond rare diseases, tackling large unmet clinical needs such as diabetes, osteoarthritis, and autoimmune diseases. The project aims to develop a dose-adjustable...

Acrigen Biosciences, Inc. was awarded a $1,000,000 cooperative agreement from the National Science Foundation under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to develop a curative gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy. Over the two year period from March 2022 to February 2024, Acrigen will engineer an anti-CRISPR protein to increase the precision and safety of CRISPR-Cas gene editing. They will pair this with a novel CRISPR nuclease and validate the system for editing and disease correction in...

The federal Project Grant award R21HD115119, totaling $531,174, was provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865). The grant aims to develop and test novel dual agonist therapies targeting the melanocortin and gut-peptide receptors for the treatment of childhood obesity. The research plan includes two specific aims: 1) fully characterizing and optimizing a GLP-1R/MC4R dual...

This SBIR Phase I project awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) program seeks to develop a new class of gene therapies that can be delivered more safely, cost-effectively, and at scale for a wide range of serious genetic disorders. The project leverages short oligonucleotides conjugated with small molecules to induce proximity of endogenous epigenetic machinery to disease-relevant genes in a precise and reversible...