BioCrowd Appointed a Founding Member of NSF-Backed National DigiFoundry

Aligned with new collaboration, BioCrowd will launch a decentralized science (DeSci) working group to build a sustainable future for open science models of funding and knowledge-sharing 

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 20, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- BioCrowd—a private biotech democratized research funding model focused on bridging the gap between academic grants and institutional funding— today announced that the company has been appointed a Genesis Block Founding Member of the National DigiFoundry (NDF). NDF is a direct implementation of the Biden Administration's Executive Order No. 1407 (2022), Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets. National DigiFoundry, which received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), officially launched on October 25, 2023.

NDF is a digital innovation sandbox program that offers a controlled environment where innovators can collaborate, build value, and mitigate risk by normalizing broadly diverse inputs using a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). The operational value of addressing these technical risks through a DAO includes the elimination of information silos, frictionless access as an iterative use case feedback mechanism, community voting, and other innovation-driven use cases. The NDF's first annual meeting is planned for January 2024 at UTSA's San Pedro I facility in the heart of downtown San Antonio, and will include founding members UTSA, BioCrowd, and Forward Edge-AI.

"This project will deliver long-term benefits. It has already attracted interest from diverse stakeholders, including multiple federal agencies, health care providers, military services, Web 3.0 companies, public transportation operators, investors and various entrepreneurial startups," said John Huggins, interim executive director of UTSA's National Security Collaboration Center (NSCC) and the primary recipient of the NSF grant to establish NDF. "This NSF grant will allow UTSA to partner in unique ways with universities, industry, government, nonprofits and national labs to innovate in the digital asset ecosystem."

"The NDF represents an exciting new model for quickly transitioning new digital asset technologies into practical, valuable and innovative use cases," said Eric Adolphe, CEO for Forward Edge-AI, which, alongside BioCrowd, is a founding NDF collaborator.

For BioCrowd, involvement in NDF is a natural extension of the company's mission. BioCrowd is building a Web3 liquid marketplace for biotech intellectual property (IP) using blockchain to help find cures for diseases faster at a lower cost, while providing capital and resources that accelerate IP innovation as an investment vehicle using SEC-compliant private securities.

A currently self-funded organization, BioCrowd, is working to increase support for the model with a $500,000 seed-funding campaign on the crowdfunding site, Fundable.com. As it grows, this environment and model will allow NDF and the decentralized science (DeSci) movement— which seeks to create alternative funding and knowledge-sharing models for scientists globally— to flourish.

"BioCrowd, in alignment with NSF and NDF, seeks to bring together private and public sector industry innovators to create an inclusive, democratized environment that reduces inequalities in medical research funding and encourages greater community influence on research pathways," said Mark Stoner, Founder and CEO of BioCrowd. "We believe that NDF will not only provide much-needed support for the growing open science and open data ecosystem but also create infrastructure around it to ensure this new mindset and way of working thrives for decades to come."

As a part of its work with National DigiFoundry, BioCrowd is spearheading the launch of a DeSci Working Group to create an open alternative to the current scientific research and funding system. "The technology we're developing in the DeSci Working Group will enable and encourage scientists to raise funding, run experiments, share data, and distribute insights in a type of crowd-sourced manner," said Stoner. "They'll also be rewarded for doing so through opportunities to earn fractional royalties. This builds upon and creates a sustainable infrastructure and ecosystem for the open science movement. It's a lot like building with Lego blocks. Rather than duplicating the work of other scientists, researchers can build upon that work and still have an opportunity to participate in monetizing discoveries."

Applications for the DeSci Working Group Steering Committee are now open to scientists and individuals working in biotech, patient advocacy groups, patients, investors, and other industries.

BioCrowd is also currently accepting applications from researchers interested in seeking funding to launch or improve their translational research projects, along with other collaborators, like patients, and patient advocacy groups who want to contribute to the DeSci movement.

"Through our decentralized accelerator platform, scientists and researchers will be able to find funding and connect directly with patients to speed up the discovery of life-saving drugs and medical devices, and patients can share in successful outcomes. Importantly, scientists, labs, and teams can earn long-term royalties on successful projects, creating more incentives to get involved," said Stoner. "Right now, we're targeting high-impact projects and novel therapeutics in areas of severe unmet need, rare diseases, and the rescue and reactivation of failed clinical trials for therapeutics that showed promise. BioCrowd is happy to partner with industry, university technology transfer offices (TTO), medical research institutions and patient advocacy groups globally to improve the current medical research funding process."

For more information or to join the community as a researcher, expert, or other active voice, visit biocrowd.io.

About BioCrowd

BioCrowd is revolutionizing funding for early-stage drug discovery and scientific research projects through an innovative platform that leverages AI and Web3 technologies, with the use of smart contracts, its native BIO token, and NFTs to enable the formation of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) that democratize and accelerate the R&D landscape. Through its decentralized science (DeSci) marketplace and virtual accelerator platform that connects leading researchers with investors, BioCrowd empowers scientists working on treatments for diseases and ailments for which there is no known or viable treatment to share knowledge and gives patients an active voice in how and when research is conducted.

BioCrowd has been self-funded to date but is now raising a seed round to continue platform infrastructure build, operational tasks, and ecosystem partnership outreach. To learn more about investment opportunities in BioCrowd visit the Fundable BioCrowd Campaign or the company website at www.biocrowd.io

CONTACT:
Camille Dawson
[email protected]
315-323-7545 Interdependence Public Relations

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