Postdoctoral entrepreneur leverages CoMotion resources to advance tools for the development of psychiatric drugs
Neuroscientist Eric Szelenyi is a participant in CoMotion’s Postdoctoral Entrepreneurship Program (PEP). With support from CoMotion and the Washington Research Foundation, PEP covers salary and benefits for full-time positions for one year, with the goal of relieving the pressure of applying for academic grants and publishing papers. PEP-supported entrepreneurs work closely with CoMotion’s innovation development team to pursue key translation experiments, hone the business model, and identify and obtain funding to further develop the commercial opportunity.
Eric’s work focuses on facilitating the development of psychiatric drugs. He spoke with CoMotion about his path to this work, the team’s commercialization efforts, and the difference the PEP program can make.
You planned to study art before switching to science as an undergrad. Do you see the two as related?
Absolutely. I excelled in art, music, and creative writing in school. Then in college I took a class called Biological Psychology that captivated me enough to send me into the direction of research. I got hooked on the creativity and imagination required to understand the biology of the mind.
I’ve been inspired by the work of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, a Spanish Nobel Prize winner who initiated modern neuroscience at the turn of the 20th century with his hand-drawn illustrations of the brain. And he started out as a rebellious artist when he was younger!
What was your path to UW?
I moved to Seattle after completing my PhD and in 2019 joined Sam Golden’s lab as a postdoc in UW’s Department of Biological Structure and the UW Center of Excellence in Neurobiology of Addiction, Pain, and Emotion (NAPE). The Golden Lab focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms and circuits guiding motivated social behavior, with a special interest in aggression, addiction, and depression.
Tell us about your research now.
I’m currently studying brain circuitries that underlie cognitive function, and how therapies can target them to treat brain disease. My research applies functional and structural mapping across the whole brain to understand complex behavior and cognitive processes. I create molecular genetic tools and multimodal platform approaches to enable discoveries of the “hidden brain” (this refers to complex aspects of brain activity that influence behavior and perception).
When and how did you start to see the commercial potential of this work? What is it you’re hoping to bring to the marketplace?
I began exploring commercialization in 2021. My team and I are developing an integrated platform solution for psychiatric drug development, using deep technology to understand the efficacy of novel psychiatric medicines. By leveraging predictive models of human drug action, we aim to enhance the selection and characterization of lead candidates for drug development, significantly improving the quality of therapies entering clinical trials and ultimately benefiting patients.
We’re busy working on de-risking and prototyping the technology, building proof-of-concept data, testing early revenue and business models, and raising non-dilutive funding to support our work and bring in strategic partnerships.
What factors have kept you pushing forward as a first-generation college and doctoral student?
I grew up north of Philadelphia, cheering for the Eagles and being brainwashed by Rocky films, so I guess I inherited an underdog mentality that has helped me overcome the adversities of being the first person in my family to do what I’m doing. I’m also stubbornly interested in doing things that no one else is doing—that is, to create.
Like many people, mental illness has personally affected my life and people close to me. This connection guides my mission to create a real, positive impact through solutions that draw on my personal experiences and professional expertise.
What aspects of the PEP program have you found most helpful so far?
The PEP program has been crucial in providing a foundation to pursue our commercialization objectives at this point, and with fewer distractions. Both the funding and the high-quality resources have facilitated valuable progress which otherwise might not have occurred.
I’m grateful for the invaluable support of the program, and CoMotion and its network. Everyone is very approachable and encouraging and the resources are abundant. We’ve also found the Fundamentals for Startups lecture series to be particularly useful, as we’re academics and new to the business world.
It’s very exciting to come out of the academic world and see the larger real-world impact of the work, not just in journals.