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LEAH Labs Wins $100,000 Grant

Bark if you love cytometers.

Now here’s some news that’s the dog’s woof (instead of the cat’s meow… cough… maybe pet puns aren’t my strong suit). Rochester’s LEAH Laboratories has secured a $100,000 grant through a Regenerative Medicine Minnesota Foundation Biobusiness Development Award. LEAH Labs will use the funds to purchase a flow cytometer. If your biotech brain is aching for a bit of good ol’ fashioned learnin’, you can read up on flow cytometry here.

LEAH Labs is using gene editing therapy typically used to treat cancers in human patients to develop similar treatments for cancers in dogs. The company is focusing on lymphoma in pooches first. Wesley Wierson, LEAH Labs Founder and CEO, says the grant money and cytometer will help propel the company forward.

“We are quickly outgrowing our current coworking lab space and need to begin accumulating the capital equipment that allows our business to become independent,” Wierson said. “Our funded RMM grant was specifically crafted to help us expand our infrastructure for building regenerative cell therapies through the purchase of our very own flow cytometer, a critical piece of equipment used to analyze cells. This will accelerate our research and clinical sample analysis at the most critical juncture of our company to date - we will be launching our first pilot study in patient animals this summer!”

In addition to LEAH Labs, the Regenerative Medicine Minnesota Foundation awarded four mor awards to Minnesota-based companies:

Maria Athanasiou, PhD, MarPam Pharma, LLC

Regenerative Medicine for the Durable Remission of HIV, Analytical Testing Infrastructure

Ross Dunbar, The Isthmus Foundation

Liquid Nitrogen-Free Cryogenic Storage System

Rick Murphy, Vascudyne Inc

Development of a peripheral nerve wrap using regenerative engineering tissue tube

Diana Trujillo, PhD, MNPHARM Inc

Commercialization of Placental Alkaline Phosphatase (PLAP) for Regeneration of Skin Tissue for Many Fields of Use

Want to learn more about LEAH Labs? We previously caught up with Wierson in our Outstate MN: Innovation in Southern Minnesota article, a part of our innovation in outstate Minnesota series.

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Alex Skjong
Alex oversees the content produced for BETA, Twin Cities Startup Week, and tech.mn. When he’s not writing or editing, there’s a good chance he’s enjoying a refreshing brew and explaining the merits of heavy metal (of which there are many).