Associate Professor Deok-Ho Kim
NanoSurface Biomedical, a startup co-founded by UW BioE alumnus Elliot Fisher (’16) and his former research advisor Deok-Ho Kim, associate professor of bioengineering, won the final round of the Seattle Angel Conference on May 16. The annual angel investment event gathers Seattle-area businesses to compete for funding, and as this year’s winner, NanoSurface Biomedical was selected from 40 companies to win $125,000.
“Winning investment from SAC gives NanoSurface strong momentum for our ongoing Series A raise,” said Fisher, the company’s chief operating officer, who pitched the company’s business plan and technologies at the competition. “We are fortunate to be building NanoSurface within such a strong startup ecosystem around UW and in Seattle.”
NanoSurface Biomedical has commercialized two innovative product lines for cell and tissue engineering, disease modeling, drug discovery and fundamental cell biology research. NanoSurface Cultureware products feature biomimetic nanotopographic surfaces that imitate the structural architecture of the native ECM, promoting the organization, migration and phenotypic development of many cell types. The NanoSurface Cytostretcher family of instruments enables researchers to apply programmable stretch routines to flexible nanopatterned culture substrates, either in the incubator or on an optical microscope stage, to explore the effects of mechanical stimulation on cell and tissue cultures.
Spun out of UW BioE in 2015, NanoSurface Biomedical aims to bring to market technologies that were developed and patented by Dr. Kim. The company collaborates closely with the Kim lab through Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant projects funded by the NIH. Housed within UW CoMotion Labs at Fluke Hall, the company continues to draw talent from UW BioE.