Binghamton researchers awarded SUNY seed funding for projects

VESTAL, N.Y. — Researchers at Binghamton University will use SUNY grant funding for work on ongoing, potentially groundbreaking research on technologies that could potentially treat serious illnesses and protect the environment.

Nearly $200,000 in seed funding from the SUNY Technology Accelerator Fund (TAF) will go to four projects that are also in progress at Stony Brook University on Long Island and at Downstate Health Sciences University

Funded by SUNY, TAF helps faculty inventors and scientists turn their research into market-ready technologies, targeting research and development milestones — such as feasibility studies, prototyping and testing — which demonstrate that an idea or innovation has commercial potential.

The goal is to increase their attractiveness to potential investors. TAF funding is awarded through a competitive process that weighs several factors, including the availability of intellectual-property protection, marketability, commercial potential, feasibility, and breadth of impact, SUNY said.

Binghamton projects

Binghamton University researchers Christopher Bishop and Fredric Manfredsson will use a $50,000 award in their work developing a new therapy to provide relief to people with Parkinson’s disease who experience a harmful side effect that occurs because of chronic drug therapy. Their “innovative” approach repurposes a drug approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration previously developed for depression to prevent the emergence of L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia.

“I am grateful to SUNY for this award, which will provide key funding to investigate and translate an exciting new therapy for Parkinson’s disease that could help minimize its debilitating symptoms and treatment-related side effects,” Bishop, director of Binghamton University’s undergraduate integrative neuroscience program, said in a release.

Another Binghamton project focuses on an estimated 3 million abandoned oil and gas wells that present environmental hazards across the U.S. Binghamton University geophysics researchers Timothy de Smet and Alex Nikulin will use $40,000 in funding as they devised a way to locate these abandoned wells. Their system uses drones to detect magnetic anomalies in the metal casings of abandoned oil and gas wells, pinpointing their location, SUNY said.