Six Cornell research teams selected for the spring 2026 cycle of the Ignite Innovation Acceleration program are working on advancing their innovation projects toward real-world impact. The program, part of the Ignite gap funding series managed by Cornell's Center for Technology Licensing (CTL), awarded $292,869 to help technologies to the next inflection point toward commercialization. 

Ignite Innovation Acceleration provides milestone-driven grants to prepare early-stage technologies for licensing, startup formation or industry collaboration. Since the program's inception, more than 44% of funded projects have advanced to a licensing agreement or startup, even at this early stage. 

“When the Innovation Acceleration committee evaluates the proposals, they look into the potential for a license, a new venture, or an industry partner,” said Alice Li, executive director at CTL. “Each project we award has specific milestones that increase the chance of commercialization."  

This spring's cycle spans gene therapy, cancer immunotherapy, infrared imaging, poultry health, carbon capture and sustainable landscaping, with awardees from four colleges: the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), Cornell Duffield Engineering, the College of Veterinary Medicine and the College of Arts and Sciences. Two of the six teams are evaluating the potential of new ventures, and a third is testing its product with commercial partners. The awardees and their projects include: 

1. Compact, Programmable Gene-Insertion Tool for Precision Gene Therapy 

Professor Joseph Peters' lab has engineered a programmable transposon insertion system using compact proteins. Inspired by naturally occurring CRISPR-associated transposons, this engineered system has the potential to enable more compact gene-insertion tools that could eventually be adapted for delivery using viral vectors. 

Existing gene-editing tools, while effective at making small edits, can struggle to insert large pieces of DNA — like a whole gene or a full exon — into specific locations in the genome. Natural CRISPR-associated transposons can guide DNA insertion without requiring a CRISPR nuclease to cut the target DNA, but their large size poses delivery challenges. The team engineered a more compact system that achieves efficient, guide-RNA-directed DNA insertion in bacteria, providing the foundation for further development of programmable gene-insertion tools. 

By potentially enabling a single therapy to address multiple disease-causing mutations within a gene, rather than requiring separate therapies for individual mutations, this technology could help streamline therapeutic development and reduce R&D costs. Further development could open new approaches to treating a range of inherited disorders. 

2. Precision-Engineered Cancer Vaccines Targeting Tumor Sugar Molecules 

The DeLisa Research Group has developed a cancer vaccine platform designed to attack the unusual sugar structures found on tumor cells, solving a problem behind early carbohydrate-targeted vaccine failures. For decades, researchers have tried to build vaccines that train the immune system to recognize them. Most have failed, and the reason was never fully understood. Theratope is the clearest example: the vaccine reached Phase III clinical trials and generated abundant antibodies in patients, yet those antibodies did not stop tumors from growing. Raising an immune response and raising a useful one proved to be different problems. 

Matthew DeLisa and his team traced the failure to a design flaw. The platform places the sugar at defined sites adjacent to the regions of the carrier that drive strong immune activation, changing the quality of the response rather than only its magnitude. Proof-of-concept studies tested the principle against carbohydrates on pathogenic bacteria, where the platform improved effectiveness across multiple sugar targets and protected mice from infection. The team is now extending the approach to tumor-associated carbohydrates and has founded an early-stage company, Gauntlet Bio, to bring the platform to patients. 

For vaccine developers and biopharmaceutical manufacturers, the work offers a rational design principle that transfers predictability from one target to the next, rather than requiring each new vaccine to be optimized from scratch. For patients with breast, pancreatic, ovarian or neuroblastoma cancer, it points toward vaccines that could be both more effective and better tolerated. 

3. Ultra-Thin Optical Lens Technology for Compact Cameras 

Nicholas Behrens has developed a flat optical chip (“pancake meta-optics") that compresses the space needed by cameras and imaging systems — especially thermal/infrared ones used in drones — into a much thinner slice of engineered material, without sacrificing imaging quality. The underlying science originated from Professor Francesco Monticone's research on manipulating light at a fundamental level. The team realized that infrared imaging for drones was the most urgent, practical entry point, leading to an improved design that's easier and cheaper to manufacture than original versions. 

Behrens is moving the technology from validated scientific principle to a prototype and demonstrating market readiness. The technology has the potential to target defense and security applications, such as drones, surveillance cameras, and gimbal-mounted imaging systems, where every gram and millimeter matters. Beyond defense, the technology could improve night-vision devices, handheld thermal cameras, and eventually consumer AR/VR headsets. Together, the technology could grow from an initial defense niche into a broader, multi-hundred-million-dollar component supply opportunity across imaging industries. 

4. Virus-Delivered Treatment to Stop Salmonella in Chickens  

Cornell researcher Erick Maosa found a way to disarm Salmonella, an infectious bacterium often spread through contaminated meat like chicken. Instead of killing it, Maosa and the team discovered a natural fatty acid (c2HDA) that shuts down the specific machinery Salmonella needs to invade and colonize the gut, without harming other beneficial bacteria. The goal is to target Salmonella's ability to cause disease at its source. 

Salmonella causes about 1.3 million infections and 500 deaths in the U.S. every year. Current methods to control Salmonella in poultry are limited — traditional antibiotics try to kill the bacteria outright, which can backfire by wiping out helpful bacteria and encouraging resistance. With this approach, the researchers engineered a virus that specifically infects Salmonella (and nothing else) to carry the instructions for making this fatty acid directly inside the bacteria itself, right where it's needed. 

The broiler chicken industry, where Salmonella contamination costs companies millions in recalls, can benefit from this technology. The method is a cheap, easy-to-administer solution: farmers could add the treatment directly to chicks' drinking water at hatch, at a very low cost per dose. If commercialized, this technology could capture a meaningful share of a market where currently no economically viable Salmonella-control solution exists, while also reducing the multi-million-dollar losses the industry faces from contamination-related recalls. 

5. Light-Powered Carbon Capture Using Only Sunlight (No Heat or Pressure Needed) 

Professor Phillip Milner's lab has developed a way to capture carbon dioxide using only light, removing the need for the costly heating or pressurizing steps used in traditional carbon capture. Capturing CO2 from industrial emissions or air is expensive because more than 80% of the cost comes from the energy required to release the trapped CO2 afterward. This new method uses one color of light to capture CO2 and a different color of light to release it, allowing the entire process to run on sunlight alone. 

This technology could make carbon capture affordable in places where energy costs dominate and low-grade heat isn't available, such as cement and steel plants, biogas facilities, and direct air capture systems. Because it can run on ambient sunlight, it also opens the door to passive, low-cost carbon capture units that don't require heavy industrial infrastructure, potentially unlocking new markets in industries where capture technology is currently too expensive to deploy.  

6. Native Lawn: A Low-Maintenance Alternative to Traditional Grass Lawns 

Cornell Botanic Gardens has developed a native lawn seed mix designed to replace traditional turf grass with a low-maintenance, native plant alternative, solving many of the environmental problems caused by conventional lawns. Traditional lawns cover 40 million acres in the U.S. and require frequent mowing, heavy watering and high levels of pesticides and fertilizer, costing homeowners time and money while providing little benefit to wildlife. The native lawn only needs mowing once or twice a year, requires no watering after it's established, and needs no fertilizer or pesticides, while supporting three times more insect biodiversity than a standard lawn. 

Todd Bittner and his team confirmed the native lawn maintains over 85% native plant coverage more than 15 years after planting, validating it as a durable, long-term alternative to turf. Nurseries and landscaping companies could license the seed mix and sell it directly to growers who want to establish their own native lawn or offer professional installation. The mix could also be licensed to a sod grower. Cornell is already testing this approach with a commercial partner, Meadow Lab. If commercialized, the native lawn could tap into a market covering tens of millions of acres of turf across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, offering homeowners and institutions a lower-cost, lower-maintenance option while addressing water use, pesticide runoff, and biodiversity loss. 

Each project received a grant of up to $50,000, tied to the technical or business development milestone that stands between the technology and its next step. Past awardees have used the funding to generate proof-of-concept data, build prototypes, conduct early market research and prepare regulatory submissions.  

“We measure this program by what happens after the award: the licenses or options signed, the companies formed and the industry partners who take these technologies forward,” Li said. “That is where the impact is."  

Ignite Innovation Acceleration is part of CTL's broader Ignite program series, which also includes the Fellow for New Ventures and Startup Projects programs, geared toward entrepreneurial innovators. 

The fall 2026 application cycle for Ignite Innovation Acceleration is now open through November 6. Cornell innovators with a disclosed invention to CTL who are seeking funding to bring their ideas to the next inflection point for commercialization are encouraged to apply.