SPARK at USC Helps Scientists Move Discoveries from the Lab to Patients

When Eun Ji Chung began at USC, she knew science was only the beginning.

Years later, when she founded a company, Silver Spur Therapeutics, the science that was born in her USC laboratory was now the basis of a therapeutic strategy to treat kidney disease. As a founder, she also had to recruit leaders and determine what regulatory agencies and investors would expect. The experience convinced Chung that colleagues with promising discoveries might need guidance that she had largely pieced together herself.

"Academics need opportunities to learn about how to take the next step towards the clinic and to hear how this can be done from academia," said Chung, the Dr. Karl Jacob Jr. and Karl Jacob III Early-Career Chair and an associate professor in the Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. "Even the initial step in finding personnel and the right expertise for the company was not an accessible answer."

That realization helped inspire SPARK at USC, a new program designed to move early biomedical discoveries toward patients. Chung co-directs the program with Juliane Glaeser, director of Translational and Collaborative Research Programs at USC Stem Cell in the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

SPARK at USC does not simply push researchers to start companies. A discovery might instead be licensed to an existing business, developed with a partner or tested in a USC clinical trial. The goal is to help each team find and reach its best next step.

Filling an early gap

SPARK at USC grew out of Chung'sTransformative Center for Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery. It is a new collaborative effort that is also backed by USC Stevens Center for Innovation and USC Stem Cell, which both provide expertise, in-kind and financial support to help train "SPARKees" in turning laboratory findings into possible therapies.

"In academia, scientists are rewarded for discoveries, grants and papers," Glaeser said, "but they have often received little formal training in developing a product for patients."

SPARK at USC focuses on complementing the USC Innovation Ecosystem specifically by helping to grow an academia - industry networking community and to provide mentorship for early-stage USC+CHLA investigators focusing on the development of therapeutics.

USC faculty, staff, students and postdoctoral researchers may participate in SPARK at USC, as may researchers at Children's Hospital Los Angeles or external entities. However, the technology must come from a USC laboratory.

The SPARK program allows trainees to serve as co-PIs along with the faculty. "Your trainee may be the future CEO of your new start-up," Chung said. "To foster innovation, it's important to us to encourage open exchange and avoid hierarchies from the beginning."

Selected teams can receive up to $50,000 a year, released as they meet certain milestones, and may seek a second year of funding. In addition to funding, programming and lectures are part of SPARK at USC, such as team gatherings in person with outside industry advisers who have signed confidentiality agreements.

Mentors will be recruited to fit each project's needs from biotechnology, pharmaceutical companies, medicine, investing and regulatory affairs. They will help teams ask: Who are the patients? How will a treatment be given? Can it be manufactured at scale? What evidence will regulatory agencies or investors require?

"We become, to some extent, an extended arm of their team," Glaeser said. "We try to build it with them."

Two teams take the first steps

USC SPARK's inaugural class has two teams. Reviewers weighed the science, patent prospects and team dynamics before selecting them.

One project, supported by the USC Stevens Center for Innovation Translation Catalyst Award, is led by Yong "Tiger" Zhang, an associate professor of pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences and chemistry. His team is advancing engineered exosomes, tiny packages produced by cells, designed to activate immune responses, against cancer that has spread to the bones. The funding will help researchers test the treatment's safety and effectiveness.

USC Stem Cell is supporting a second project through the USC Stem Cell - SPARK at USC Innovation Catalyst Grant in Regenerative Medicine. The project is led by Albert Ernesto Almada, an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery and stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, and Syed Ahmed, a research assistant professor at the USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Their team is developing a potential treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy that breaks down a harmful protein. The researchers will compare several versions to determine which is safest and most effective.

"Throughout our program we identify in close communication with our teams their next achievable steps," Glaeser said. "We may identify for example that interviewing industry experts or performing a market analysis is needed. It is a really interesting way to work together while enhancing commercial thinking."

Chung and Glaeser studied and visited the SPARK at Stanford program, which was founded in 2006. The model has spread worldwide, now called SPARK Global, with each site adapting it to local needs.

SPARK at USC retains the model's open exchange, multiple viewpoints and team approach, but concentrates on early discoveries - precisely where Glaeser and Chung see the greatest local need.

Chung brings a faculty founder's perspective. Glaeser brings experience building programs and collaborations, including co-leading the USC+CHLA Alpha Clinic.

In the first year, success means refining the program and empowering researchers with a mindset towards clinical translation and commercialization. Over the next five years, the leaders hope to support more SPARKees through additional sources of investment and build a lasting community. "The benchmark will not simply be startups or licensing deals," Chung said, "but whether teams gain the tools to keep promising ideas moving toward patients."

Published on November 11th, 2026

Last updated on November 11th, 2026