Acorn Grant Awarded for Research on Plant Production of Chemotherapy Drugs
ChE Associate Professor Carolyn Lee-Parsons and Postdoctoral Research Associate Lauren Cole-Osborn were awarded a 2025 Acorn Innovation Grant (Acorn Award) from MassVentures for their project, “Elite CRISPR-Edited Periwinkle Plants for Production of Chemotherapeutics.”
The Acorn Award is a proof-of-concept and commercialization funding program designed to help Massachusetts research institutions bring innovative technologies closer to market. Each $36,000 grant is funded by the Legislature through the Commonwealth’s Innovation Commercialization Seed Fund and overseen by MassVentures. Recipients are selected through a competitive review process based on their project’s technical merit, commercial viability, project plan, and team strength.
The Lee-Parsons lab will use CRISPR technology to generate gene-edited Madagascar periwinkle plants with elevated concentrations of precursors to vincristine, a key chemotherapy drug. With proof-of-concept data already in place and a pending patent, the team is now working on building their prototype as the next step toward commercialization.