February is the commencement of the Second Annual Sprout Grant Program. Aimed towards budding entrepreneurs in the fields of the Life Sciences and Information Technology, the grant provides Brandeis researchers with funding to bring their ideas and discoveries to commercial application. Associate Provost for Innovation and Executive Director of the Office of Technology Licensing Irene Abrams has high expectations for this year's program.

According to the Brandeis website, there were 23 teams consisting of 60 applicants in 2011, and Abrams hopes that the numbers will be even greater this year. Funded by the Office of the Provost, the Sprout Grant totals $50,000 and will be divided among approximately four research teams or individuals. In an interview with the Justice, Abrams explained, "We're funding something that is already in process. The goal is to put extra funds ... towards commercialization." Brandeis can earn royalties based on the successes of the funded projects since the University owns the rights of intellectual property coming out of it.

Some of last year's winners have achieved recent success. The team that created StudyEgg, Josh Silverman PB '11, Jason Urton M.A. Computer Science, and Bill DeRusha M.A. Computer Science, were featured in Entrepreneur Magazine in November 2011. According to the feature, StudyEgg is an application that brings study exercises like flashcards and fill-in-the-blanks to students' smartphones. The app's creators have also secured additional funding and guidance from the Rhode Island based company Betaspring. In an email to the Justice regarding his experience with the Sprout Grant, Silverman said "As students, this was a great first experience for us in grant-writing and pitching."

The Sprout Grant benefited candidate for Ph.D. in Molecular Biology Rory Coffey's team as well, who focused on the mutated protein Ras, found in 20 to 30 percent of cancers. In an email to the Justice, Coffey explained that the grant enabled him financially to test some of his ideas. He conveyed that he has not yet had success, but there is still one more experiment to be done.

Abrams concluded, "I'd like to encourage people to apply. There are ideas at Brandeis, and we'd like to help them get to the market." Undergraduate and graduate students are welcome to apply, as well as those of post-doctorates, faculty and staff.