News and Events

The City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering, along with four partner institutions, has received a $1.325 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for talent and workforce development, and research training, as part of a collaborative project to prevent infections in tissue-engineered organs, implants, and other medical devices.

The study, “Collaborative Research: GCR: Infection-Resisting Resorbable Scaffolds for Engineering Human Tissue,” is being carried out by cross-disciplinary partners at Stevens Institute of Technology (the lead institution), Syracuse University, Binghamton University, and the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School, in addition to The City College.

The project is part of the Growing Convergence Research program at NSF, which was launched in 2016 to bring together diverse researchers from different disciplines to pursue a scientific challenge. The funding is part of a larger, five-year $3.6 million two-phase project that leverages the research and training expertise from the five universities to engineer next generation materials that prevent device infection while promoting tissue formation.

The CCNY effort is led by Jeffrey S. Garanich, director of the master’s degree program in translational medicine, known as MTM, and by Professor of Biomedical Engineering Steven B. Nicoll, the director of the Connective Tissue Engineering Laboratory in the Grove School. The resources of MTM and the newly-formed City Innovations Collaborative, or CInC, will be utilized to commercialize the life sciences technologies developed through this convergent initiative.

Student trainees will have the opportunity to gain relevant experience in life sciences technology commercialization through internships organized by CInC.  In addition, hands-on experience in designing prototype antimicrobial materials will be provided by the Laboratory.

An important feature of the GCR grant is a summer Research Experience for Undergraduates program that will allow student exchange between the partnering institutions. “The REU program will enhance cross-fertilization of ideas and expose students to different research environments, which will be a tremendous benefit to their academic growth,” said Nicoll.

Another highlight of the grant is a faculty immersion program, which will foster collaborative research efforts by enabling the principal investigators to spend time at the partner institutions.  A new inter-institutional course on medical device infection co-taught by the GCR faculty, and open to students from each of the five schools, will also provide opportunities for intellectual exchange between the GCR partners.

The extensive translational medicine infrastructure at CCNY coupled with our biomaterials and tissue engineering expertise will be a great asset to the student participants and to the entire convergent research team,” said Garanich.  “We look forward to working with our partner institutions to provide unparalleled talent and workforce development opportunities to address the challenge of medical device infections.”

About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization DegreeChoices ranks CCNY #3 nationally for social mobility. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Emsi puts at $1.9 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers and society. At City College, more than 15,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. This year, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign, ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together,” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.

The City College of New York has received an Empire State Development grant of $4.5 million for its City Innovations Collaborative life sciences incubator facility.

The grant, announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul, is the final component needed to complete the construction of the $34 million facility – known as CInC – in West Harlem’s Manhattanville Factory District.

CInC is a new regional innovation engine created by CCNY to seed, cultivate, and sustain a thriving regional life science ecosystem for New York City communities who have been historically underrepresented in this space. CInC will be an anchor tenant in the building, which is adjacent to the City College campus, and will support commercialization efforts for several new ventures concurrently.

These efforts will be aided by the work of the College’s master’s degree program in translational medicine, or MTM, which recently received a $1.325 million National Science Foundation grant as part of a convergent research and training study.

The success of the now eight-year-old MTM was accelerated by a $2.4 million gift from Seymour Moskowitz ’54 and Pearl Moskowitz in January 2020. The donation, one of many by the Moskowitzes over the years, enabled MTM to expand its education and training of cross-functional teams that address unmet healthcare needs.

CCNY’s existing partners include the New York City Economic Development Corporation, which provided a $15 million award last summer, and West Harlem-based Janus Property Company. In addition to providing substantial capital for the project, Janus is transforming the former Taystee bread factory at 450 W. 126^th St. into the Taystee Life Sciences Building, a purpose-built facility for the life sciences.

CCNY has also received operational support from the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Build to Scale program.

CInC’s collaborative model will focus resources from many diverse stakeholders, including universities, governments, industry, investors, foundations, entrepreneurs, and patient advocacy groups. Selected innovation development projects and ventures should have the potential to drive positive health, societal, and economic impact for New Yorkers, particularly those from surrounding communities such as Harlem.

“CInC was created to address the critical gaps in resources for the CCNY/CUNY innovation ecosystems, which are still maturing as the institution continues to grow its research base,” said Senior Director of Innovation Management and Business Development Andrew Wooten, who is also president of CInC. “The resources required for innovation development are very specialized by stage of development and class of product. No single organization can do the work alone.”

“This grant will allow us to embark on a project of strategic importance to the College: building the capacity to deliver vital research in the life sciences to society in the form of medically useful innovation,” said CCNY President Vincent G. Boudreau. “As a college dedicated to addressing disparities of all kinds, we believe that developing this facility in Harlem to benefit the medically underserved and the economically under-resourced resonates deeply with our most closely held values.”

About the City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Emsi puts at $1.9 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers and society. At City College, more than 15,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. This year, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign, ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.