Epilepsy, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s disease — as a Jim Pope Fellow, Adam McCallum is dedicated to helping students search for solutions to these and other devastating diseases. McCallum is a translational research advocate in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, currently ranked No. 2 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. He hopes to accelerate the commercialization of the most promising biotech advances.  

When McCallum learned about the Jim Pope Fellowship, he saw it as a tremendous opportunity. “Biomedical engineering research has so much potential to be translated into products and solutions that tackle unmet clinical needs, that could be shaped to enhance society in general,” he says. “It’s a collaboration between biology, medicine, and engineering. The Pope Fellowship is a unique opportunity to explore new projects dedicated to entrepreneurship.” 

McCallum is one of five faculty members to receive the Jim Pope Fellowship, which supports faculty in becoming entrepreneurial instructors and mentors in CREATE-X. He hopes to leverage this fellowship to instill entrepreneurial confidence in biomedical engineering graduate students and faculty and help them translate their research into IP and healthcare-focused products to be used in and out of the clinic.

Since being named a fellow, McCallum has applied the funding to attend conferences to learn more about new methods for teaching commercialization and entrepreneurship, develop programming to enhance the student experience, increase student understanding and interest in entrepreneurship, and explore creative new projects he has envisioned while at Georgia Tech.

Establishing a New Commercialization Course

Beginning in the fall, he will teach a new course, Fundamentals of Biotechnology Commercialization, targeting BME graduate students. McCallum developed the curriculum, which begins with an overview of technology commercialization and the commercialization process, followed by modules on IP — how to protect one’s inventions; financing, with a focus on early-stage commercialization funding opportunities; and choosing a commercialization path.

“In the second part of the course, students will simulate a patent filing,” says McCallum. “It’s a really important step in the commercialization process. In future iterations of the course, I would love to have students file real disclosures and provisional patent applications with our Tech Transfer Office and have a licensing associate talk to them about managing the IP.”

BME Innovations Pivotal to Georgia Tech’s IP Ecosystem

McCallum sees Georgia Tech BME researchers as an important driver of innovation, and the Institute’s patent track record reflects their critical role: More than 21% of U.S.-issued patents to Georgia Tech have at least one BME inventor listed, according to the Office of Commercialization. 

In the past year, he has already seen the value of infusing an entrepreneurial spirit into his curriculum. Annabelle Singer (BME) and Levi Wood (ME) were mentored by McCallum while they were developing an audiovisual device to help stimulate brain activity in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy. Through this mentorship, Singer and Wood recognized possible use cases and commercialization pathways for their technology.

“Their device has potential applications in a wide range of other neurological conditions — to lessen the impact of these disorders on people in their everyday life,” says McCallum, adding, “I’m excited about Georgia Tech and Emory’s commitment to developing programs to enhance neuroscience and neural engineering research. There’s so much potential in that space, especially for being able to significantly impact diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease, as well as strokes and epilepsy. We are moving in the right direction with being able to improve the efficacy of the modalities to diagnose and treat these conditions.”

According to McCallum, his close connection to CREATE-X has given him a unique opportunity to see the impact of the program on the entrepreneurial endeavors of students and even faculty members. 

“Previous fellows have been very successful with developing new educational programs and courses, as well as creating new spaces to spawn innovation, to instill entrepreneurial confidence in undergraduate students, and I want to use those successes as inspiration to make an impact on graduate student entrepreneurial confidence in BME, with much more to come,” he said.

As one of President Ángel Cabrera's four Big Bets, the drive for entrepreneurial education and opportunities has accelerated at Georgia Tech. In 2023, over a third of all Georgia Tech applicants selected entrepreneurship as an interest. Pope Fellows have a unique opportunity to help students tap into entrepreneurial pathways with CREATE-X, access an abundance of resources, and solve real-world problems. For faculty interested in joining, applications are open for the 2025 Jim Pope Fellowship until Sept. 2. For more information, visit https://create-x.gatech.edu/faculty/jim-pope-fellowship.