According to the latest data released by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research, the College of Pharmacy ranked No. 3 nationally among pharmacy schools, pulling in $19.4 million in NIH awards in 2025. With $176 million in awards supporting more than 300 research projects, the College of Medicine ranked No. 40, and No. 20 among public institutions.

The medical college’s neurosurgery and neuroscience programs also ranked highly for their NIH grant awards.

Read more about UF Ranks Highly in NIH Funding.

In 2024, investigators initiated and continued multiyear federally funded projects that may soon lead to new treatments for conditions ranging from antibiotic resistant infections and diabetes to pediatric cancer and dementia.

“Every day, UF College of Medicine researchers — from our principal investigators, trainees and techs alike — use their passion and talents for science to solve problems impacting our patients,” said Azra Bihorac, M.D., M.S., senior associate dean for the UF Medicine office of research. “We are grateful to the NIH for enabling our researchers to fulfill the college’s mission of improving quality of life for all.”

The capital investments, along with the technical collaborations from these four universities, will allow Amend Surgical to accelerate the development and market launch of Amend Tissue Tape™, a biocompatible, hydrogel-based adhesive that safely adheres in wet environments such as the oral cavity. Tissue Tape is an easy to apply, clear, smooth strip that forms a protective barrier between the wound and surrounding tissues. The device stays in place during wound healing to prevent further irritation, contamination and provides improvement in wound healing and patient comfort following dental surgery or soft tissue injuries. Amend Surgical is actively developing both non-resorbable and resorbable product options for applications in periodontal and oral surgical procedures. The intellectual property for the Tissue Tape™ technology was licensed from The Wyss Institute at Harvard University in June 2020. 

The Florida Institute supports new company development and expansion based on publicly funded research and bridges early funding gaps for early-stage Florida-based technology companies. This new funding agreement represents Florida Institutes second investment in the team at Amend Surgical. The MPWRM Resource Center was established as an interdisciplinary partnership amongst the University of Michigan, the University of Pittsburgh, and the Wyss Institute, along with technology, clinical, regulatory, marketing, and commercial translation experts from private practice and industry. Through this collaborative effort, their goal is to accelerate clinical adoption of promising technologies by providing the interdisciplinary expertise and resources to guide technologies towards FDA submissions.

The UF startup has created a new way of manufacturing displays that dramatically reduces the cost and improves the performance of OLED displays.  Despite OLEDs outperforming even the best liquid crystal displays (LCDs), LCDs continue to dominate the display market – think phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, televisions, billboards, virtual reality glasses, and more – because OLEDs are expensive to manufacture.  

However, Mattrix Technologies, a resident client at UF Innovate | The Hub, has found a way to use LCD manufacturing techniques to produce OLEDs at a fraction of the cost. While much of the industry has focused on creating better light-emitting materials (organic semiconductors and quantum dots), the UF startup has focused on the technology that supplies the electrical current that is converted into light by the OLED. 

By doing so, Mattrix may lower the cost of manufacturing better quality screens while repurposing old LCD factories, a win for consumers and manufacturers. The investment by the Gainesville Tech Fund will allow the company to build more advanced prototypes,  providing further proof of concept of its technology. 

“We are thrilled to have the Gainesville Tech Fund on board,” says Max Lemaitre, CEO and founder of Mattrix.  “This investment will allow us to develop and demonstrate some of the amazing features of our pixel technology in real display applications.  The Gainesville Tech Fund is providing a fantastic boost to the vibrant local start-up community. It’s a very exciting time to be innovating in Gainesville.” 

The company’s technology uses research – 16 patents for carbon nanotubes and thin-film transistors – licensed from the University of Florida. The technology enables three key benefits:  

• Better displays, including brighter screens that use less power and last longer, bendable screens for phones and laptops, and screens that can become completely transparent. 
• Greener manufacturing processes, reducing the total energy and number of manufacturing steps needed to produce the screens. 
• Recycling of obsolete factories, using much of the same tooling as existing LCD factories (saving up to $900M per factory line). 

In June, venture capital firm Kirenaga announced it was vying for the interest of investors for a Gainesville Tech Fund to provide Alachua County businesses the funding and resources they need to become a commercial success. Kirenaga has been investing in Florida companies since 2015 and targets businesses with significant potential for commercial growth and success. 

“We now have over 50 investors in the greater Gainesville region alone who have come together to make sure local companies like Mattrix receive the right funding at the right time,” said Jim Thomas, Florida ecosystem leader and partner at Kirenaga.   

“This success demonstrates the power to do great things when people catalyze capital to move a community forward. We believe the leadership shown in Gainesville will create a movement around the entire state that will spur innovation, grow new high-wage jobs, and foster prosperity.”  

In July 2020, UF Innovate | Ventures announced inaugural investments in Mattrix Technologies, following JSR Corporations repeat investment in the display startup. Samsung Venture Investment Corporation is also an investor in the company. 

About Mattrix Technologies 

Founded in 2018, Mattrix Technologies is a semiconductor device company developing a breakthrough pixel architecture for flat-panel displays. The company has pioneered its revolutionary OLET (organic light-emitting transistor) technology to enable the cost-effective production of large-area displays.   

OLET is a new paradigm for emissive displays that solves the backplane challenges that have limited the adoption of AMOLED displays. At the heart of this breakthrough is a proprietary pixel architecture that combines the drive transistor, storage capacitor and light-emitting layers into a single element. This enables a full-aperture, bottom emission display that simplifies the manufacturing process, increases product lifetime and panel brightness.  

For more information about Mattrix Technologies, please visit www.mattrix.com  

Media Inquiries: info@mattrix.com 

About Kirenaga

Headquartered in Orlando, FL
www.Kirenaga.com
For more information: Jim Thomas james.thomas@kirenaga.com

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Since 2017, the company has secured nearly $900,000 in grants. The company also received $250,000 of funding as part of IndieBio’s Cohort 5 as well as recently receiving $75,000 from Thrive Accelerator, bringing their total grant and venture investment funding to nearly $1.5 million.

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The research will make use of a $60 million gift from NVIDIA and co-founder Chris Malachowsky, a UF alumnus. The funding has been used to increase computing capabilities at the Gainesville school.