Houston companies take home big prizes from a Texas A&M startup competition

Big winners

Spark Biomedical took home first place at the Texas A&M New Ventures Competition. Courtesy of Texas A&M

Earlier this month, 16 startups competed in the 2019 Texas A&M New Ventures Competition for more than $350,000 in cash and in-kind services — the largest pool of prizes in the contest's history.

Houston had a huge presence at TNVC this year. Several Houston startups competed in the technology- and science-focused pitch competition, and the top three prizes were claimed by Houstonians. Of the 13 health and life science companies that were named semifinalists, seven were related to the TMC Innovation Institute.

Here are the Houston companies that walked away from the TNVC with cash and/or prizes.

Spark Biomedical

Friendswood-based medical device company Spark Biomedical took home the top prize at TNVC, which came with a $50,000 check. Spark's technology uses a noninvasive neurostimulation treatment for opioid addiction recovery.

"I'm very humbled and grateful," says Daniel Powell, CEO of Spark, in a release. "This award means a lot because Texas A&M is my alma mater. Being back here is fantastic, and this win is a testament to the work we're doing and our dedication to making a difference with this product."

Spark also was recognized with the Southwest Pediatric Device Prize and the Aggie Angel Network Investment Prize. Recently, Spark announced a partnership with another Houston startup, Galen Data.

SurfEllent

Photo via surfellent.com

Coming in at No. 2 overall and receiving a $35,000 prize was Houston-based advanced coating company, SurfEllent. The company, which is based out of the University of Houston's Technology Park, has designed an anti-icing technology that can be used in any type of situation from de-icing cars to aeronautical applications.

SurfEllent was also recently recognized as one of the top three innovators at NASA's 2017 iTech forum, out of 130 entries across the US.

The company also walked away with the TEEX Product Development Center Prize.

Intelligent Implants

Photo by Cody Duty/TMC

Intelligent Implants called Houston home during the 2018 TMCx medical device cohort and still has a presence in town. The company, which created a, implantable wireless device that stimulates bone growth using electrical stimulation, claimed third prize and $25,000.

Last fall, following its success at TMCx, Intelligent Implants was named the "Most Promising Life Science Company" at the 2018 Texas Life Science Forum hosted by the Rice Alliance and BioHouston.

VenoStent

Photo via venostent.com

Another 2018 TMCx medical device cohort member competed at the TNVC and left with fresh funds. VenoStent took fifth place and a $10,000 prize. VenoStent has a device that allows a successful stent implementation on the first try, called the SelfWrap. The device is made from a shape-memory polymer that uses body heat to mold the stent into the vein-artery junction.

VenoStent, which has its headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, also won the Ramey & Schwaller IP Legal Services Prize.

PolyVascular

Courtesy of TMC Innovation

Houston-based PolyVascular walked away a big winner of multiple prizes. The company, a member of TMCx's 2017 medical device cohort, creates polymeric transcatheter valves for children with congenital heart disease.

PolyVascular won the TNVC pitch competition, which came with a $5,000 prize. The startup also walked away with the Biotex Investment Prize, the Amerra Visualization Services Prize, and the GOOSE Society Investment Prize.

Ictero Medical

Ictero Medical, which operates out of JLABs at TMC, took home several prizes, including the Thomas | Horstemeyer IP Legal Services Prize, the TMC Accelerator Admission Prize, and the Engineering Vice Chancellor Innovation Prize — a new award that came with a $15,000 prize.

Ictero created the CholeSafe System — a minimally invasive device that treats gallstone disease patients in a procedure with "only minimal local anesthesia to defunctionalize the gallbladder without having to remove it," according to the website.

Sun Co. Tracking

Sun Co. Tracking was the other of the two startups to receive the new Engineering Vice Chancellor's Innovation Prize and its own $15,000 prize. The Houston-based company is developing shape memory alloy actuators for solar panels.

"This unique prize is intended to help the awardees access the world-class engineering capabilities at Texas A&M to obtain technical assistance toward solving their most challenging technical problems in product design, manufacturing or testing," says Dr. Balakrishna Haridas, TEES director for technology commercialization and entrepreneurship, in a release.

"These collaborations between the prize winners and Texas A&M Engineering will generate technical data to support on Small Business Innovation Research/grant proposal funding or private capital investments to the company."

GaitIQ

Photo via LinkedIn

GaitIQ is based in San Antonio, but is automatically accepted into TMCx's tenth cohort if they'd like, since the company won the TMC Investment Prize. The company, which created a primary care app that uses artificial intelligence and cloud-based technology, also won sixth place overall and $5,000.

GaitIQ also won the Ark Pharmacies, Inc. Regional Prize, the Hollinden Marketing and Strategists Services Prize, and the Schwegman Lundberg and Woessner IP Legal Services Prize.

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Houston lab develops AI tool to improve neurodevelopmental diagnoses

developing news

One of the hardest parts of any medical condition is waiting for answers. Speeding up an accurate diagnosis can be a doctor’s greatest mercy to a family. A team at Baylor College of Medicine has created technology that may do exactly that.

Led by Dr. Ryan S. Dhindsa, assistant professor of pathology and immunology at Baylor and principal investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital, the scientists have developed an artificial intelligence-based approach that will help doctors to identify genes tied to neurodevelopmental disorders. Their research was recently published the American Journal of Human Genetics.

According to its website, Dhindsa Lab uses “human genomics, human stem cell models, and computational biology to advance precision medicine.” The diagnoses that stem from the new computational tool could include specific types of autism spectrum disorder, epilepsy and developmental delay, disorders that often don’t come with a genetic diagnosis.

“Although researchers have made major strides identifying different genes associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, many patients with these conditions still do not receive a genetic diagnosis, indicating that there are many more genes waiting to be discovered,” Dhindsa said in a news release.

Typically, scientists must sequence the genes of many people with a diagnosis, as well as people not affected by the disorder, to find new genes associated with a particular disease or disorder. That takes time, money, and a little bit of luck. AI minimizes the need for all three, explains Dhindsa: “We used AI to find patterns among genes already linked to neurodevelopmental diseases and predict additional genes that might also be involved in these disorders.”

The models, made using patterns expressed at the single-cell level, are augmented with north of 300 additional biological features, including data on how intolerant genes are to mutations, whether they interact with other known disease-associated genes, and their functional roles in different biological pathways.

Dhindsa says that these models have exceptionally high predictive value.

“Top-ranked genes were up to two-fold or six-fold, depending on the mode of inheritance, more enriched for high-confidence neurodevelopmental disorder risk genes compared to genic intolerance metrics alone,” he said in the release. “Additionally, some top-ranking genes were 45 to 500 times more likely to be supported by the literature than lower-ranking genes.”

That means that the models may actually validate genes that haven’t yet been proven to be involved in neurodevelopmental conditions. Gene discovery done with the help of AI could possibly become the new normal for families seeking answers beyond umbrella terms like “autism spectrum disorder.”

“We hope that our models will accelerate gene discovery and patient diagnoses, and future studies will assess this possibility,” Dhindsa added.

Texas robotics co. begins new search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370

International News

Malaysia’s government has given final approval for a Texas-based marine robotics company to renew the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean more than a decade ago.

Cabinet ministers agreed to terms and conditions for a “no-find, no-fee” contract with Texas-based Ocean Infinity to resume the seabed search operation at a new 5,800-square-mile site in the ocean, Transport Minister Anthony Loke said in a statement Wednesday. Ocean Infinity will be paid $70 million only if wreckage is discovered.

The Boeing 777 plane vanished from radar shortly after taking off on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people, mostly Chinese nationals, on a flight from Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, to Beijing. Satellite data showed the plane turned from its flight path and headed south to the far-southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed.

An expensive multinational search failed to turn up any clues to its location, although debris washed ashore on the east African coast and Indian Ocean islands. A private search in 2018 by Ocean Infinity also found nothing.

The final approval for a new search came three months after Malaysia gave the nod in principle to plans for a fresh search.

Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Punkett earlier this year reportedly said the company had improved its technology since 2018. He has said the firm is working with many experts to analyze data and had narrowed the search area to the most likely site.

Loke said his ministry will ink a contract with Ocean Infinity soon but didn’t provide details on the terms. The firm has reportedly sent a search vessel to the site and indicated that January-April is the best period for the search.

“The government is committed to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of the passengers of flight MH370,” he said in a statement.

Harris County booms with 3rd biggest population in U.S.

Boomtown

Newly released U.S. Census Bureau data has revealed Harris County became the third most populous county nationwide in 2024, and it had the highest year-over-year growth rate from 2023.

The new population report, published this month, estimated year-over-year population data from 2023 to 2024 across all 3,144 U.S. counties, and 387 metro areas.

Harris County's numeric growth rate outpaced all other U.S. counties from July 1, 2023 to July 1, 2024, the report found. The Census Bureau estimated Harris County's population grew by 105,852 people year-over-year, bringing the total population to 5,009,302 residents. That's around a 2.16 percent growth rate.

Los Angeles County, California (No. 1) and Illinois' Cook County (No. 2) are the only two U.S. counties that have larger populations than Harris County. Los Angeles County now boasts a population of nearly 9.76 million, while Cook County's has increased to more than 5.18 million people.

The top 10 most populous counties in the U.S. are:

  • No. 1 – Los Angles County, California
  • No. 2 – Cook County, Illinois
  • No. 3 – Harris County, Texas
  • No. 4 – Maricopa County, Arizona
  • No. 5 – San Diego County, California
  • No. 6 – Orange County, California
  • No. 7 – Miami-Dade County, Florida
  • No. 8 – Dallas County, Texas
  • No. 9 – Kings County, New York
  • No. 10 – Riverside County, California

Montgomery County also ranked among the top 10 U.S. counties with the highest numeric growth, ranking 9th nationally after gaining 34,268 residents from 2023 to 2024. Montgomery County's population has now grown to 749,613 people.

In the report's national comparison of counties with the largest population growth by percentage, Montgomery County ranked No. 7 with a year-over-year growth rate of 4.8 percent.

Most populated U.S. metro areas

The U.S. Census Bureau additionally found Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands nearly led the nation as the second-fastest growing metro area in 2024.

From July 2023 to July 2024, the Houston metro added 198,171 residents to bring the total population to 7,796,182.

New York-Newark-Jersey City was the only metro area to outpace Houston's growth during the one-year period. The New York-New Jersey metro added 213,403 new residents, which brought the total population to over 19.94 million last year.

Kristie Wilder, a Census Bureau Population Division demographer, said in the report that the nation's population growth in its major metros was largely impacted by international migration rather than changes in birth rates.

"While births continue to contribute to overall growth, rising net international migration is offsetting the ongoing net domestic outmigration we see in many of these areas," Wilder said.

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington was right behind Houston as the third-fastest growing U.S. metro in 2024. The Metroplex gained 177,922 residents last year, and now has a total population of more than 8.34 million.

The top 10 U.S. metros with the highest numeric growth from 2023 to 2024 are:

  • No. 1 – New York-Newark-Jersey City, New York-New Jersey
  • No. 2 – Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, Texas
  • No. 3 – Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas
  • No. 4 – Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Florida
  • No. 5 – Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Virginia-Maryland-West Virginia
  • No. 6 – Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, Arizona
  • No. 7 – Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Florida
  • No. 8 – Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Georgia
  • No. 9 – Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, Illinois-Indiana
  • No. 10 – Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washington
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This article originally appeared on our sister site, CultureMap.com.

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