Texas Medical Center Innovation named 20 oncology startups to the 2022 cohort of its groundbreaking Accelerator for Cancer Therapeutics this week in celebration with the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act.

The group of Texas-based companies and academic researchers will participate in 9 months of clinical and business development education through the accelerator, with the goal of reaching new milestones, developing strategic plans for their companies, commercializing, and preparing for clinical trials. At the close of the session, the companies will be eligible to apply for grants and pitch investors and corporate partners.

"With the ongoing pandemic, which poses more threat to at-risk populations, it has never been more important to mature novel cancer therapeutics," says Emily Reiser, associate director of TMC Innovation, in a statement. "Any drug currently on the market is developed in the spirit of scientific discovery. The importance of developing innovative solutions is not just something that drives TMCi and our Accelerators, and it is at the heart of our ability to improve patient care and outcomes."

The researchers and companies in the 2022 cohort are developing inventive cancer solutions that consider everything from vaccines against cancer to noninvasive therapies to image-guided technologies and advanced diagnosis. The full list of members includes:

• Dr. Bruna Corradetti (ExMet)
• Dr. George Calin
• Dr. Rosa Hwang (StellaNova)
• Dr. Robert Jenq
• Dr. Chun Li – MD3
• Dr. Shuxing Zhang (Ubigen)
• Dr. Stephen Safe
• Dr. Xiaotong Song
• Dr. Robert Tsai
• Dr. Wei-Chuan Shih and Dr. Steven Lin (Xolytix)
• Dr. Wenbo Li
• Dr. Cara Gonzales
• Dr. Yogesh Gupta
• Ms. Johanna Webb and Dr. Jean Jiang (Riverwalk Therapeutics)
• Dr. Ratna Vadlamudi
• Dr. Subhash Chauhan
• Dr. Hans Hammers and Dr. Xiankai Sun
• Mr. Russell Hayward and Dr. Ganesh Raj (EtiraRX)
• Dr. Jacques Lux (MUSIC)
• Dr. Phillip Scherer

TMiC's ACT was launched in 2019 thanks to a grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, and is in association with the Gulf Coast Consortia (GCC) and the University of Texas Medical Branch. That year, the CPRIT announced 71 statewide grants, awarding the TMC $5 million to launch the accelerator.

The ACT's first cohort kicked off in January of 2021 with a group split about evenly between companies and academic researchers-all hailing from Texas.

Houston has become a hub for oncology innovation in recent years, in part thanks to the ACT's work. Click here to listen to Innovation Map's interview with Enrique Gomez, the ACT's entrepreneur in residence, on how the TMC and other Texas institutions are looking at "every possible strategy to tackle cancer."