{"457701":{"#nid":"457701","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Viapore Takes TERMIS Crown","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003ENathan Evans and Brennan Torstrick are men with a plan \u2013 an award-winning plan, as it turns out. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EThe Georgia Institute of Technology Ph.D. students have been hauling in the hardware in business plan competition for Viapore, a project built around technology they developed.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003ETheir most recent success, a victory in September at the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) World Congress in Boston, might be the most impressive yet for the research duo, because this time they were on their own.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EViapore was created in the TI:GER (Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results) program at Georgia Tech\u2019s Scheller College of Business, by a team that included Evans, Torstrick, Tech MBA students Anne Hewitt and Matthew Kroge, and Emory Law student Brad Schweizer (who also has an MBA).\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EIn previous competitions, the business-minded trio \u2013 Hewitt, Kroge and Schweizer \u2013 were generally on hand to present the team\u2019s plan. But it was just Evans and Torstrick at TERMIS.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003E\u201cWe had been leaning heavily on our teammates in previous competitions,\u201d says Evans, who is pursuing his Ph.D. in materials science and engineering (MSE), and has worked in the lab of Ken Gall (who recently became chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Duke University). \u201cBut by the time we got to the TERMIS competition, we were fluent on the business side of things.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003ETorstrick, a mechanical engineering Ph.D. student in the lab of Petit Institute Executive Director Bob Guldberg, adds, \u201cthe technology intuitively makes sense to a lot of people. They get it.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EPart of their TI:GER training involved gathering feedback from potential customers as well as key opinion leaders, like surgeons and their advisors, among others.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003E\u201cThe market need is obvious,\u201d Torstrick says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EThat was a message that came across at previous competitions as well. Viapore beat 20 other teams to win the TiE Atlanta competition (The Indus Entrepreneurs), and made it to the semifinals in the other contests, including the Global Venture Labs Investment Competition (considered the \u201cSuper Bowl of Investment Competitions\u201d) in May, in Austin, Texas.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003E\u201cTERMIS was different,\u201d Evans says. \u201cThe other competitions were mostly MBAs who found a technology in a university and were leveraging that. The fact that Brennan and I are engineers and the inventors who are heavily involved in research and technology was an advantage at TERMIS, where the focus is on tissue engineering.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EViapore spun out of the duo\u2019s thesis research. It\u2019s something Evans (nearing the end of his fourth year) began working on in January 2012, and Torstrick (early fourth year) got into in August 2012. The surface porous PEEK implant technology they have developed over the last three-plus years addresses a major clinical need.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003E\u201cPEEK is a popular polymer implant material, due to its favorable biomechanical and clinical imaging properties, but surgeons have found that it does not integrate well with bone and can easily slip out of place,\u201d Guldberg says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003ESo, the duo combined their skills in mechanics of materials and bioengineering to come up with an improvement, developing a porous implant for fusion surgeries that will reduce the need for revision surgeries by providing faster and better integration with bone and tissue than nonporous implants.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EAnd with their multidisciplinary teammates from the TI:GER experience, they\u2019ve devised a successful plan to bring the product to market.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003E\u201cI\u2019m really impressed that they have taken an innovative development from the research laboratory and created an award-winning business plan for translating it into a product to help people who need back surgery.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EAlong the way, the Viapore team also created a perfect slogan for the product: \u201cWe\u2019ve got your back.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECONTACT:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Grad students win national business plan competition"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EGrad students win national business plan competition\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Grad students win national business plan competition"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2015-10-09 14:40:14","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:19:43","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-10-09T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-10-09T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"457691":{"id":"457691","type":"image","title":"Torstrick and Evans","body":null,"created":"1449256347","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 19:12:27","changed":"1475895202","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:53:22","alt":"Torstrick and Evans","file":{"fid":"203521","name":"termis_duo.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/termis_duo_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/termis_duo_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2355603,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/termis_duo_0.jpg?itok=TWD3WUIG"}}},"media_ids":["457691"],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1808","name":"graduate students"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}