Avisi Technologies: $1M NSF Grant

In 2017, Brandon Kao of Penn Engineering and Rui Jing Jiang and Adarsh Battu of the Wharton School devised a way to use a nanoscale material in the treatment of a form of glaucoma. That material, developed by Igor Bargatin, associate professor in the SEAS department of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics, could be comfortably implanted in the eye and shunt away the fluid that builds up with the disease, preventing damage to the optic nerve.

Their implant idea, VisiPlate, and subsequent company, Avisi Technologies, earned the trio the 2016-2017 Y-Prize, the 2018 President’s Innovation Prize, and a home base at the Pennovation Center.

Now, it has earned them a $1 Million Small Business Innovation Research Phase II grant from the National Science Foundation. The funding will help prepare the team for clinical trials, which they plan to begin in 2021.

https://almanac.upenn.edu/articles/avisi-technologies-1-million-nsf-grant