Entrepreneurship at Binghamton

08/30/2026

Please join us in welcoming Natalya Chernova to Binghamton University's Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Partnerships as the new Program Director for New Energy New York!

Natalya brings over two decades of experience as a battery materials scientist specializing in Li-ion battery research and development — including five years taking technologies from the lab bench all the way to full commercial gigafactory production. She has a strong track record securing and managing major federal and state grants (DOE, NSF, NYSERDA) and has built strategic partnerships spanning academia, industry, and national labs to drive innovation and commercialization.

That expertise makes her a natural fit for NENY, America's Battery Tech Hub — and we couldn't be more excited to have her leading the program forward.

Fun fact: when she's not advancing battery technology, Natalya is out on the trail — she's climbed numerous high peaks across the Catskills and Adirondacks!

Welcome to the team, Natalya! 🔋⛰️

08/27/2026

Big congratulations to Emma Smith, who's stepping into the role of Senior Operations Manager at Koffman Southern Tier Incubator! Emma's been part of the team since 2015, and anyone who's worked with her knows she's the one holding all the pieces together — programs, staff, participants, all of it. So happy to celebrate this with you, Emma!

08/25/2026

Big win for EXCEED participant! PhD candidate Chen Lin was recently awarded a Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health! This award enables "promising predoctoral students with potential to develop into productive, independent research scientists to obtain mentored research training while conducting dissertation research." Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Binghamton University, Siyuan Rao is Lin's advisor and sponsor for this project.

08/18/2026

Congratulations to Tracy Brooks, Chair and Associate Professor at Binghamton University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, for receiving 2026 Seed Translation Research Project Funding from the EXCEED program!

Delivering targeted gene therapies directly to diseased tissue without affecting healthy cells remains one of medicine's biggest hurdles. Existing oligonucleotide therapies are largely limited to liver targets or localized treatments. Brooks' groundbreaking research solves that bottleneck.

The team developed a novel Antibody-Cell Penetrating Peptide-Oligonucleotide Conjugate (ACOC) platform designed for precise, systemic drug delivery. The targeting antibody directs therapy to specific disease sites, starting with HER2+ solid tumors. Preclinical tests show significantly stronger anticancer activity than traditional dual-component approaches. This modular system opens new possibilities for treating solid tumors, CNS, renal, and cardiovascular diseases.

Join us in celebrating this exciting advancement of impactful research happening at Binghamton University! Watch the Faculty Focus video on Brooks' research at https://bit.ly/3U3kEEc

08/11/2026

Save the date! Sept 3, Koffman Southern Tier Incubator is Breaking Down the Silos with a Block Party! RSVP to our toast to summer and welcome the 'new school year' vibes: https://bit.ly/4xCz7Wf

Sponsored by Visions Federal Credit Union!

08/04/2026

Innovation Spotlight 💡 Distinguished Professor in Chemistry, Chuan-Jian Zhong, and PhD Candidate Danial Mousavi are 's second National I-Corps team this summer! Their innovation, DanSens Mobile, is a point-of-care platform with a portable reader and disposable strips that deliver instant, lab-grade quantification of cancer biomarkers. Their beachhead market is late-stage lung cancer therapy monitoring, with the aim of helping oncologists rapidly track drug efficacy.

Team DanSens Mobile attended the Bio International Convention this summer to maximize opportunities to connect with potential customers, explore market entry, and assess the potential impact for their platform. The long-term goal will be for DanSens Mobile to serve as a tool for early detection with primary care providers, in addition to its current market for treatment monitoring.

07/30/2026

A special 'Invented at Bing' post! Katie Liu spotlights 3 faculty innovators with discoveries coming out of the lab and eyeing to solve real-world problems. Read the story to get inspired and learn about the challenges, successes, and resources that have supported them along the way. https://bit.ly/3RxIc2W

07/28/2026

3 Classes + $1,000 = more customers for your business! Enroll for Customer Discovery Crash Course at Koffman Southern Tier Incubator! https://bit.ly/4b1FycA

07/21/2026

Innovation Spotlight 💡 Weiying Dai and Yanchen Guo are one of two National NSF I-Corps teams from this summer. Together, they are working to bring their product, FlexSleep Transformer, to the market for real-world impact. With strategic outreach, by attending major industry conferences like SLEEP 2026, and by visiting Guthrie Vestal Sleep Care, this team has conducted meaningful interviews and taken action on what they've learned through the NSF I-Corps program.

About the innovation: FlexSleepTransformer helps Sleep Service Directors at hospital-based sleep centers managing more than 20 beds per night eliminate sleep study scoring bottlenecks. Our hardware-agnostic AI platform reduces scoring time from approximately 2 hours to just 2 minutes, achieves 85% accuracy on complex cases such as COPD and heart failure, and provides explainable results that clinicians can trust. The result is lower labor costs, reduced scoring backlogs, and faster patient care—all without requiring additional staff or changes to existing hardware.

07/16/2026

Starting from an idea or scaling what you've built? Lock in for 12 weeks, get up to $3,000 for the next step in your business! Make it happen and apply at

Business Accelerator: Launch it. Grow it. Earn while you learn register Here Hybrid A business accelerator for Southern Tier entrepreneurs. Whether you're starting from an idea or scaling what you've built, to validate, price, pitch, and prepare your business for real capital.  EARN WHILE YOU LEARN...