GOHA Affiliate Member Ashley Brown Receives Funding from NCInnovation

From stopping a car accident before it starts to preventing fatal medical emergencies, the two College of Engineering faculty members who received 2025 NCInnovation grants are changing the world.

Jason Patrick, associate professor in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering and Ashley Brown, Lampe Distinguished Professor in the Lampe Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at NC State University and UNC-Chapel Hill, are among the 13 faculty members in the University of North Carolina System to receive research funding grants from NCInnovation, a nonprofit that provides grant funding and support services for North Carolina’s public universities.

Patrick’s research focuses on making structural fiber-composites tougher and more resilient by strengthening the “interlayers” in these lightweight laminated materials that form modern aircraft, cars and wind turbine blades.

His goal is to build longer-lasting and safer infrastructure, decrease maintenance costs and create stronger industrial systems across North Carolina’s advanced manufacturing sector. With the grant funding, Patrick’s team will test its technologies in real-life scenarios and prepare them for market.

“I’m deeply honored to be awarded this competitive grant from NCInnovation and excited to make an impact in North Carolina’s aerospace ecosystem and beyond by commercializing our patented self-healing composites,” Patrick said.

Patrick is the CTO of a startup company, Structeryx, that spun out of his research at NC State. Structeryx is a partner on the grant.

Brown’s team develops “synthetic platelets,” small particles designed to help the body clot faster and more effectively, reinforcing the body’s natural defenses against severe bleeding, which is often a complication of surgeries, injuries or chronic health conditions. For victims of severe bleeding, this could mean the difference between life or death.

The NCInnovation grant will allow Brown and her partners to refine their technology — which is designed to be stable, low-cost and easy to store — for hospitals and disaster-response settings.

“I am incredibly grateful for the support from NC Innovation, which will be critical for moving our synthetic platelet technology forward towards clinical use to stop bleeding and speed healing,” she said.

Jason Franz, professor in Lampe Joint BME whose lab is based on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus, also received an NCInnovation grant for his work to develop a cost-effective wearable sensor and machine-learning system that helps clinicians detect and monitor lower-extremity osteoarthritis earlier and more accurately.

NCInnovation distributed $10 million across 13 projects at 11 UNC System schools.

“Dr. Patrick and Dr. Brown are working on exciting research that could transform how composite materials are structured and how emergency personnel treat traumatic injuries,” said Michelle Bolas, NCInnovation’s interim CEO. “NCInnovation helps universities advance research with just this kind of real-world application, strengthening the university-to-industry pipeline that’s central to American competitiveness.”

This post was originally published in College of Engineering News.