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What if improving one’s athletic performance through supplements was simpler and more affordable? What if, instead of producing emissions, airplanes could take carbon out of the air? These ideas and more are realities in the making, thanks to many aspiring entrepreneurs who pitched their products at the 16th annual New Venture Challenge (NVC) finals.

Scientists from CU ÐßÐßÊÓƵ and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) made an important leap forward in the quest to diagnose disease using exhaled breath, reporting that a new laser-based breathalyzer—born of Nobel Prize-winning technology from CU—powered by artificial intelligence (AI) can detect COVID-19 in real-time with excellent accuracy.

Endpoints News—OnKure Therapeutics has lined up $60 million in a new private funding round, adding to the CU ÐßÐßÊÓƵ spinout’s bank account as it works through a Phase II trial. The startup is attempting to create an inhibitor of histone deacetylases, or HDACs, which are DNA-manipulating enzymes that alter how genes get expressed.

US Department of Energy—OMC Hydrogen, a CU ÐßÐßÊÓƵ spinout from Professor Alan W. Weimer's lab, won first place at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Most Epic Cleantech Pitch Competition. The company is developing green hydrogen technology that eliminates the significant carbon emissions found in other hydrogen production methods.

Five promising startups spun out of CU ÐßÐßÊÓƵ comprise the first cohort of companies to receive investment from the Buff Venture Fund. The fund is the newest opportunity for CU ÐßÐßÊÓƵ startups to access critical funding on the path to success. The Buff Venture Fund is administered by Buff Gold Ventures, which has a formal partnership with Venture Partners at CU ÐßÐßÊÓƵ.

On two exciting nights of pitches and prizes, ten startups brought a broad range of ideas to the stage, including how to live and garden more sustainably, how to deal with the downsides of social media, how to offer practical prosthetics for kids—and sustainable water filters and hydroponic produce for all. Across the two events, eight teams took home a total of $20,000 to develop their ideas further.

Wanted: entrepreneurs ready to launch startups based on innovations created in CU ÐßÐßÊÓƵ’s research labs. The Embark Deep Tech Startup Creator is a new program created by Venture Partners at CU ÐßÐßÊÓƵ, the commercialization arm of CU, to match business minds outside the university with breakthrough inventions created within its walls.

CU ÐßÐßÊÓƵ has developed a groundbreaking pipeline to translate research into real-world impact, as highlighted in the 2022 Annual Report of Venture Partners at CU ÐßÐßÊÓƵ, the university’s commercialization arm.

As a first-generation college student turned molecular biologist, Brian DeDecker imagines a day when humble soybeans beans, which his family has grown for generations, pack a bounty of therapeutic but hard-to-obtain natural compounds.

The intermountain west innovation ecosystem came together at the fifth annual Destination Startup® showcase on Feb. 15 and 16, hosted by Venture Partners at CU ÐßÐßÊÓƵ. In a highly competitive field, 21 university ventures from intermountain west research institutions were selected to present at the showcase.