Translational Academy
Turning a lab discovery into a beneficial healthcare product or service can be a long and arduous journey riddled with risk. Most startups fail — up to 90%, according to some estimates. The Translational Academy provides entrepreneurial education and support for innovators and early-career faculty. It improves entrepreneurial outcomes through a mix of talent development and structured translational support in an incubator setting.
Similar programs provide either entrepreneurial training for researchers or startup creation around a specific technology. The Translational Academy does both — nurtures talent and technology in the local ecosystem.
Case Studies
- As a biochemistry doctoral student at UNC-Chapel Hill, Brianna Vickerman made the kind of lab breakthrough scientists dream about — a new way to control the precise location, timing and dosing of a drug using light-activated materials. She faced graduation and the likelihood her research would wither. Instead, through the Translational Academy, Eshelman Innovation funded her professorship, gave her entrepreneurial training and helped her raise an additional $4 million in grant funding. Forbes named Vickerman one of North America’s 30 most accomplished scientists under the age of 30 in 2025. Vickerman launched a company, Covalt Bio, to commercialize her light-activated therapy platform.
- One reason startups fail is because an inexperienced innovator tried to spin out of a university too soon. That almost happened to Andrew Satterlee. As a graduate student, he and his faculty advisor developed an innovative way to use patient tumor samples as a platform for personalized cancer treatment planning and drug discovery. Satterlee, a brain cancer survivor, was highly motived to apply his breakthrough to help patients. But he wasn’t ready to start a company. In addition to funding Satterlee’s professorship and entrepreneurial training, the Translational Academy convened a seasoned advisory board that helped him create the Screening Live Cancer Explants Program and Core, one of Carolina’s shared research facilities. His platform helps match the right drug to the right patient — either by determining what drug is most effective against a patient’s own tumor or by using these collected tumors as preclinical testing models to refine the next generation of therapies. The core had immediate success supporting Carolina researchers, including helping Nobel Laureate Aziz Sancar develop a new brain cancer drug. And it is attracting commercial clients who use the platform for drug discovery.