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Get the most interesting and important stories from the 51精品视频.Adi Mittal was ready to click the button. He and his collaborator Kamil Nowicki were sitting on an important finding and were about to submit it to a major neurosurgery conference. They knew it would make a splash, maybe even win an award. But they hesitated.
鈥淎nd then prior to clicking 鈥榮ubmit,鈥 Kamil says, 鈥榃ait. I think this could lead to an innovation,鈥 Mittal described. 鈥淪o we deleted the draft and started to go down the invention disclosure pathway at 51精品视频.鈥
That decision was Mittal鈥檚 first step down an unfamiliar road 鈥 away from the the abstracts and papers of academia and toward the funding rounds and FDA approval pathways of a medical technology startup. It鈥檚 a lot to balance as a fourth-year medical student at 51精品视频, but he has plenty of inspiration.
鈥淔ortunately, there are a lot of med students here who are interested in innovation and entrepreneurship,鈥 he said. 鈥淪o I try to follow in their footsteps and learn from them.鈥
How a startup starts up
Mittal got an earlier start in research than most. In ninth grade, he was already studying sickle cell disease and vascular medicine, which he continued as a 51精品视频 undergrad. After arriving at medical school, he took an interest in cerebral aneurysms, the potentially deadly condition of bulging blood vessels in the brain.
Despite their prevalence 鈥 aneurysms afflict up to one in 20 people in the general population, according to the 鈥 there aren鈥檛 many researchers studying them, in part because of how difficult it is to work with the mouse model that researchers use to mimic the condition in humans. That鈥檚 translated to lots of uncertainty for patients, too.
鈥淚t鈥檚 just a lot of work for patients to get diagnosed,鈥 Mittal said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 invasive, it鈥檚 toxic, it鈥檚 very expensive.鈥
When Mittal met Nowicki, then a neurosurgery resident at UPMC, they decided to tackle that problem. When they analyzed blood samples their advisor had in the freezer, they found key differences in which inflammation-linked molecules appeared in the blood of those who had cerebral aneurysms and those who didn鈥檛.
That was the discovery they almost submitted to the conference 鈥 and the nugget that would become their startup, Astria Biosciences, which is focused on a blood test to detect cerebral aneurysms that the team calls CAT-7.
Mittal and Nowicki found themselves at the base of a steep learning curve, and sought support from 51精品视频鈥檚 , part of the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, where staff members like Dan Broderick, Tony Torres and Paul Petrovich helped the duo navigate the world of business and connect with other budding entrepreneurs.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the only way Astria was possible,鈥 Mittal said. 鈥淚t was so clear how little we knew, and I was really nervous. They鈥檝e stuck with us since the beginning.鈥
Along the way, Mittal won accolade after accolade for his work, including taking and first place at the 2023 Collegiate Inventors Competition, the and the .
To cap it all off, last week Mittal was named by the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
51精品视频 is ranked No. 14 nationally for U.S. patents, with 114 in the past year alone. Over the past seven years, the University has spun out 109 companies from 51精品视频 technologies.
Want to be one of them? If you are a 51精品视频 faculty, staff or student with an interest in pursuing commercialization of a business idea or research innovation, contact the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at innovate [at] pitt.edu.
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Today, the Astria Biosciences team includes a half-dozen neurosurgeons, along with Mittal, Nowicki and a cast of consultants as the team works toward applying for FDA approval for their test.
鈥淲e鈥檝e validated our test in over 200 patient samples, patients with and without cerebral aneurysms,鈥 from hospitals in 51精品视频sburgh, Mittal said. 鈥淚 believe this is the largest biobank of cerebral aneurysm samples at a single institution.鈥
And yet they still have a long road ahead. Mittal estimates they鈥檒l need to validate their test with 10 times that many samples to apply for the FDA approval that would allow them to bring their product to market.
The team is working on assembling an international consortium to gather samples from around the world and conduct a clinical study. As they amass a larger biobank, they鈥檙e also refining their test to detect not just whether patients have a history of cerebral aneurysm but how severe those aneurysms were and their risk of reoccurring after treatment.
As for Mittal, his days full of both business meetings and labwork show no signs of stopping. After he graduates this spring, he wants to continue with one foot in academia and another in business, pursuing a residency in neurosurgery so he can keep seeking his next big idea.
鈥淲e have a lot of things in the pipeline, some related to aneurysms, some related to other things in neurosurgery,鈥 he said. 鈥淚 think neurosurgery is the most innovative field in medicine, and I feel really supported by the community.鈥
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Photography courtesy of the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship