Were it not for Wallace H. Coulter, things would be different. His brilliant Coulter principle, which made it possible to count and determine the size of microscopic particles suspended in fluid (think erythrocytes in plasma), revolutionized diagnostic medicine in the 1950s. The labor-intensive method of counting blood products became automated using his Coulter Counter, which is currently also used in the all-important processes of making beer and chocolate and analyzing moon dust.

Do we care? Indeed we do.

With much of his wealth, Coulter established the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation with the mission of improving “health care through medical research and engineering.” As a partner of the Coulter Foundation in its Translational Research Grants Program, Stanford awards $800,000 annually to teams of researchers in Bioengineering and Medicine who collaborate to “address unmet clinical needs, improve health care and lead to commercially available products.” [See http://bioengineering.stanford.edu/coulter/]

The deadline for the 2015 round of granting is fast approaching:  Monday, January 26. You may apply for a one-year grant of up to $100,000, potentially renewable for a second year, to pay for operating supplies, minor equipment, reagents, prototyping expenses, imaging time, preclinical costs, and travel. Other allowable expenses are salary support of post docs and contract research staff and the cost of creating an intellectual property strategy.

To date, 55 projects have been funded, 20 companies have been formed, 5 licenses have been granted, and $540 million has been received in follow-on funding.

A few titles of projects funded in the past: a low cost ventilator for use in developing nations and large scale disasters (2008); minimally invasive treatment for hemorrhoids (2010); and towards a cure for the common cold (2013).

If it’s too late for you to submit in 2015, it is not too late to begin thinking about 2016. Perhaps your project will be the next one funded and your company the next one formed.