“When I sit with the AMI team, I feel their strong commitment to the success of my company. I find myself surrounded with experts in intellectual property, corporate law, market assessment, regulatory, startup creation, and business valuation who synergistically strategize with me. They become my extended virtual executive team and I can tap into their wisdom as often as I need. I have been able to move much faster in the early stages of launching a startup.”
Doug Lane, MD
CEO and President of Applied Integrin Sciences,
a USC spinoff commercializing the research work on cancer therapeutics from the team of Frank Markland, MD, USC professor of biochemistry and molecular biology.

“I have been doing surgical operations for more than 35 years and see many opportunities to improve patient care with some simple medical tools that could be designed and sold to hospitals. I have been known to call AMI USC in the middle of the night, upon completion of my surgery to describe the idea that formed in my head while in surgery.”
Ricardo Hahn, MD
USC Family Physician

“AMI USC de-risked this ultra-short pulse delivery solution by funding activities that answered the feasibility questions that typically venture firm investors and corporate partners will ask. For instance, AMI USC built pre-production systems that met regulatory requirements of Good Manufacturing Practices to run pilot human studies. ThelioPulse benefits from a product far more mature than if we had taken it straight from the university. This gives an advantage while raising capital.”
Gary Hutchinson
Successful serial entrepreneur, who started working with the Institute several months prior to the launch of the spinoff ThelioPulse and is now President and CEO of ThelioPulse

When I completed my Ph.D. research work, I knew I had something unique but I did not know its full value. I took this to AMI USC.”
Stephen Fiacco
USC alum and today CEO of EvoRx Technologies, Inc.

The Alfred Mann Institute offers an extraordinary service. “Accelerating Medical Innovation” is not just a goal but the way things are done…and the acceleration is fast! After considering my idea in an open-minded manner, AMI quickly set it on the road to reality. Within a few weeks of my initial presentation a skilled and diverse team offered insightful and constructive feedback, searched for IP space, provided personal introductions to several high-level funding contacts and suggested a path for product development. We at USC are truly fortunate to have this service available to us.
Elizabeth Beale, MD
Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes
Keck School of Medicine
University of Southern California

It has been a pleasure to interact with AMI for the last two years. Our initial dialog led to a partnership with the Institute, with the goal to develop and commercialize a new family of materials for medical solutions. The work done by AMI to understand the intellectual property (IP) space was extremely valuable and helped us to orient our thoughts to do research that is novel and exciting from both scientific and IP perspectives. I have also benefited, through the my involvement with AMI and their connections, by building new relationships with other groups at USC, such as MDs who have become interested in the potential of our materials in their medical applications. I highly recommend the Alfred E. Mann Institute to any inventor from USC who has a new biomedical concept and wants to see how far it can go.
Professor Mark Thompson, Ph.D
L.J. Stabler Laboratory
Department of Chemistry
University of Southern California

I have had the pleasure to see the AMI's commitment to helping inventors. AMI goes and explore the potential of each invention and share all their findings with the innovators. I sat in meetings where I was invited to join and contribute to AMI's discussions on how to best position product ideas in the context of the intellectual property, the market potential and the regulatory path. Among AMI's many strengths, their openess to people's ideas, their belief in seeking expert opinions, their continued financial support over several years, and most of all, their commitment to be helpful to all who visit them, made this institute one of a kind on campus.
Professor Ismael N. Nuno, MD, FACS, FACC, FAHA
Chief, Cardiac Surgery Service
LAC+USC Medical Center

The AMI has provided me and my research group with an opportunity to transition technology from the laboratory directly to a potentially valuable and useful commercial cancer therapy for skin cancers. The AMI, from its Director to all those involved, has addressed innumerable issues, impossible without the organization and support that they have provided. These have included not only engineering design issues, but extensive assistance in seeking and supporting IP, conducting safety tests and obtaining approvals at all stages for clinical testing of our therapeutic ideas. Through the leadership of Jon Lasch and formerly Pete Staudthammer, who were always accessible, and the involvement of many others, including Jack Weissberg and Nathalie Gosset, it has been possible to explore every aspect of this tech transfer. This has been done with none of the complexity in preparing proposals for federal grants -- AMI has been more than willing to take on the complex issues foreign to the typical researcher, simplifying in effect the process. The AMI has been a "silver bullet" for our efforts to transition technology.
Professor Martin Gundersen, Ph.D
Electrical Engineering-Electrophysics
Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Physics and Astronomy

After almost a decade of managing M&A and business development projects across three continents for a global pharmaceutical company I turned my attention to managing entrepreneurial biotech and tech companies. I recently joined a USC biopharmaceutical start-up company as its CEO and immediately brought in AMI to help us advance the company. My experience working with AMI has been extraordinary. The leadership, expertise, responsiveness, and unqualified professional acumen in management, legal (corporate, IP and transactional), public relations, finance, business development, engineering, technology development, and regulatory affairs at AMI are unparalleled, and consistently delivered with caring smiles. Within AMI I've found a 'virtual management team' to support our start-up efforts that rivals the extensive resources that supported me at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceutical Company's precursor. USC and its entrepreneurs are very fortunate to have such an outstanding group of professionals available to them.
Douglas C. Lane
President and CEO
Applied Integrin Sciences, Inc.

AMI provides welcoming and substantial support to engineering faculty with new interesting ideas in the field of bioengineering. It offers crucial support to the Viterbi School through its commitment to move new inventions to commercialization including providing technical, business, and intellectual property resources; and through its commitment to education including teaching, lectures, and support of graduate level fellowship and internships.
Yannis Yortsos, Ph.D
Dean of Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California
Chester F. Dolley Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
Zohrab A. Kaprielian Dean's Chair in Engineering

I have worked with the Alfred E. Mann Institute at USC for four years. During this time, they have taken my often-primitive ideas and put them through a rigorous evaluation and concept development leading to an actual product with commercialization potential or even better outright actual market presence. What stands out is the ability of the AMI team to come together, see the value of ideas put forth by our USC medical faculty and carry them from concept to design, patent, prototyping, and then finding the most appropriate way for commercialization.
Professor Ricardo Hahn, MD
USC Family Medicine

AMI at USC has provided unconditional support to the cause of the Southern California Biomedical Council. They share similar belief to mine that Southern California is a treasure chest of medical inventions that deserve to be commercialized and launched on the market. AMI focuses on USC and steps in during the early stages when ideas have just burgeoned. They provide direction to land in the most optimal commercial position within a startup or in the arms of large medical manufacturers. My organization works downstream with lining up the venture capital that can take life science innovation to the market. We share the same mission.
Ahmed Enany
President and Chief Executive Officer
Southern California Biomedical Council

The Alfred Mann Institute adds tremendous value to USC biomedical innovations. AMI experts provide excellent feedback and analysis to help USC researchers better conceptualize the market potential of their ideas.
Annette Kleiser, Ph.D
Senior Program Officer
Industry Alliances
USC Stevens Center for Innovation

The AMI's continuous support and sponsorship of our annual USC Body Computing Conference has enabled us to develop connections between academia and industry leaders to catalyze the development of innovative ideas and biomedical technologies in wireless health. Since 2007, we have been looking to the Institute for collaborations on projects of common interest and look forward to the experience, leadership and expertise that Dr. Jon Lasch will bring to our newly-formed USC Center for Body Computing.
Professor Leslie A. Saxon, MD
Chief, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine
Executive Director, USC Center for Body Computing
Keck School of Medicine of USC

The USC Stevens Center for Innovation has the pleasure of working with AMI in the shared goal of fostering the development and commercialization of innovative technologies at USC. We enjoy AMI's collaborative, open and supportive approach, and value the expertise and resources provided to USC researchers that, in turn, accelerates the emergence of USC ideas into the market place and creates a lasting, profound societal impact.
Richard Hull, Ph.D
Senior Director of New Ventures and Alliances
USC Stevens Center for Innovation