The Kincaid University lab that produced Kestrel Biologics just landed one of the largest federal research grants in the university's history, and Dr. Wei-Lin Tan says she's hoping it produces a second breakout company.
Dr. Wei-Lin Tan’s gene-therapy research lab at Kincaid University has won a $3.2 million federal research grant, one of the largest federal awards ever received by a Kincaid faculty member, university officials announced Monday.
The four-year grant will fund continued research into targeted gene-therapy delivery methods, building on work that previously spun out Kestrel Biologics, the biotech company that has become one of Foundry Row’s anchor employers. Tan said the grant would allow her lab to expand its research team by roughly six positions, including postdoctoral researchers and lab technicians.
A second act for a lab that already spun out a company
“Most labs are lucky to produce one commercially viable discovery in a career,” Tan said. “We got that with Kestrel. This grant is funding the research we think has a real chance of being the second one, though I want to be careful not to promise that outcome before the data supports it.”
Kincaid President Howard Faircloth called the grant validation of the university’s recent push to expand biotech research funding as part of its newly announced $200 million capital campaign, which directs roughly $80 million toward biotech commercialization efforts modeled partly on Tan’s earlier success. “Dr. Tan’s lab is the proof of concept for why we’re making that bet,” Faircloth said. “You don’t get a gift like the one behind our new campaign’s biotech allocation without a track record like hers.”
Kestrel Biologics CEO Elena Marchetti, whose company grew out of Tan’s earlier research, said the grant was good news for the region’s broader biotech ecosystem, not just for Kincaid. “Every dollar of federal research funding that comes into a lab like Wei-Lin’s eventually turns into local jobs, one way or another,” Marchetti said. “That’s exactly what happened the first time.”
A workforce question follows the funding
Dr. Samuel Iyer, the Bellwater State labor economist who tracks the region’s biotech workforce trends in his annual skills-gap report, said the grant was a positive sign for the region’s research capacity but cautioned that it would likely add to, rather than ease, the skills gap employers already describe. “Every time a lab like this grows, it needs more trained technicians locally, not fewer,” Iyer said. “The good news is more research funding coming into the city. The complicated news is it puts even more pressure on the training pipeline that Bellwater State and the community college are already racing to build out.”
I would love to tell you this grant solves our hiring problem. It doesn’t. If anything, it adds six more positions to a list of jobs this region already can’t fill fast enough with local graduates.
Dr. Wei-Lin Tan, Kincaid University
Tan said her lab has begun discussions with Bellwater State University about creating a formal training pipeline for undergraduate lab technicians, similar to arrangements the university has pursued with Kestrel Biologics and Bellwater Turbine Works. She said she hoped the new grant funding could support paid internship positions for students from both Kincaid and Bellwater State, rather than relying solely on graduate researchers.
The grant announcement adds to a string of recent biotech-related news out of Bellwater’s universities, including Bellwater State’s groundbreaking on a new biomanufacturing lab and Kincaid’s capital campaign launch. Faircloth said the timing was coincidental but reflective of a broader trend of federal and private research money flowing into the region’s universities as its biotech sector has grown.
Tan said her lab expects to begin hiring for the new positions within the next several months, with a preference for candidates already living in the region. “I don’t want to have to recruit all six of these positions from outside Bellwater,” she said. “If this region’s training pipeline is doing its job, some of those hires should be able to come from right here.”
The grant was awarded through a competitive federal review process that Tan said typically funds only a small fraction of applications in her research area. She credited part of the university’s success to infrastructure improvements made after Kestrel’s founding, including new equipment purchased with proceeds from licensing agreements tied to the earlier gene-therapy research. “We were able to submit preliminary data that simply wouldn’t have existed without the equipment Kestrel’s success helped us justify buying,” Tan said.
Faircloth said the grant would also factor into the university’s pitch to donors for its ongoing capital campaign, which includes a significant allocation for biotech lab space. “Federal grants like this one are exactly the kind of outside validation that makes a donor more comfortable writing a large check,” he said. “It tells them their money is following, not leading, a track record that already works.”
Tan said she expected the new research to take at least two years before yielding results clear enough to judge whether a second commercial spinout was realistic. In the meantime, she said her lab would continue collaborating informally with Kestrel on shared equipment and occasional joint publications, though she stressed the two entities remain legally and financially separate.