2026 SUD Sprint Cohort

Mahmoud Salama Ahmed is an assistant professor at department of pharmaceutical sciences at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC). Prior to TTUHSC, he was trained as a medicinal chemist to receive his PhD from the department of chemistry and biochemistry at South Dakota State University (SDSU). Then, he joined Kemin Industries, Iowa; as a postdoctoral research scientist. In 2018, he joined UT Southwestern medical center as a research instructor. Dr. Ahmed’s research program at TTUHSC focuses on reimagining a platform to develop small molecules and/or pair established FDA therapeutics to target critical diseases in human health by bringing molecular modeling and structure-informed machine learning into the genomics era. Dr. Ahmed got multiple recognitions such as TTUHSC emerging inventor (2023), President's early career investigator award (TTUHSC, 2025), and American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) early career investigator for cardiovascular pharmacology (2026).

I believe this course will interpret our scientific findings to take it to the entrepreneurship level.

Identification of non-opioid based therapeutics targeting EphB tyrosine signaling in chronic pain

Chronic inflammatory pain is a common debilitating condition that typically results in the prescription of opioids at escalating doses and has created a severe nationwide threat. Our innovation is to elucidate nonopioid based therapeutics that can of the EphB1/2 tyrosine kinase signaling cascade to reverse/block associated thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia in the progression of chronic pain. Therefore, we will identify the necessary structure/activity requirements and the molecular mechanism of novel compounds targeting EphB1/2 tyrosine kinase to decrease chronic pain in preclinical rodent models.

Jess Anand is currently faculty in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Michigan. She is trained as a Medicinal Chemist and has more than 15 years of experience in the field of opioid research. Dr. Anand’s work focuses on the unique strategy of exploiting the shape and structure of highly dangerous illicit drugs and transforming them into potentially life saving rescue medications for patients suffering from overdose and drug abuse. Her medicinal chemistry and pharmacology work has helped to separate useful drugs, such as those that can be converted to new therapeutics, from dangerous ones. This separation allows up to effectively pursue the development of medicine – more compassionate overdose rescue agents, pain medications without addiction liability, or medications to combat anxiety and depression. By learning more about what drives the danger of illicit drugs, we are able to understand the benefits and liabilities of new drug compounds. With this understanding, we are better equipped to tackle the ongoing chronic pain and drug abuse epidemics.

I have a compound that is very close to IND and want more information on how to best get it into the world and working to improve medical care.

Developing Better Opioid Overdose Rescue Agents 

Narcan is currently the standard of care for reversing opioid overdoses. However it is less effective against novel ultra-potent synthetic opioids currently flooding the market. There is therefore an urgent unmet medical need for improved opioid overdose rescue agents that are more potent and longer lasting.

David A. Colby, Pharm.D., Ph.D., is the Chief Scientific Officer and a Founder of Fluoriq LLC, a biotechnology company focused on applying innovative chemistry to address critical challenges in healthcare. He has published nearly 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications, and his laboratory has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 2011. Dr. Colby has experience translating scientific discoveries into real-world applications, including the commercialization of technologies and serving as an inventor on patent applications and issued patents. Dr. Colby has advanced training in both pharmacy and chemistry, holding a Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry. His research expertise spans medicinal chemistry, natural products chemistry, drug design, and fluorine chemistry. He is also an educator in medicinal chemistry, dietary supplements, and medical cannabis. Dr. Colby is currently working with the team at Fluoriq LLC to commercialize the first noninvasive pain diagnostic that is designed to objectively quantify novel biomarkers to guide treatment of substance use disorder and chronic pain using saliva.

I am a pharmacist-scientist, and this product has the potential to deliver substantial impact for patients with substance use disorder. My laboratory has invented the enabling technology, and even though I have assembled a capable team at Fluoriq, we still have critical needs to put a new medical diagnostic in the market. I want to participate in this program to improve my skills in entrepreneurship and connect with experts to move this invention from bench to bedside.

A Noninvasive Diagnostic Test to Guide Addiction Therapy

The prototype envisioned by the team at Fluoriq LLC is a noninvasive diagnostic collection and analysis system designed to objectively quantify biomarkers of pain to guide treatment of substance use disorder and chronic pain using saliva.

I am a neuroscientist launching an independent research program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, focused on stress-sensitive brain circuits across neurological and psychiatric disease. My research centers on the nucleus incertus and its relaxin-3/RXFP3 signaling system, an understudied brain network implicated in stress regulation, compulsion, relapse vulnerability, and emerging mechanisms of neurodegeneration. Trained across international institutions, including Laval University, the University of Bordeaux, the University of Melbourne, and the Mayo Clinic, I bring over a decade of expertise in translational neuroscience, including more than seven years of experience working in industry. My goal is to bridge fundamental brain science with translational impact by developing innovative, mechanism-based interventions with relevance to substance use disorders and neurodegenerative disease.

I want to participate in this program because I am at a stage where I need to move beyond the laboratory and learn how to translate strong neuroscience into solutions that can meaningfully help people. As a neuroscientist, I have had limited exposure to market strategy, customer discovery, and commercialization, and I am eager to better understand what it takes to move a therapy from bench research to bedside impact. I am particularly excited to engage with a diverse cohort of clinicians, founders, and public health leaders, whose perspectives will help ground my work in translational and community-informed needs and strengthen its relevance for individuals and systems affected by substance use disorders.

Breaking the Stress–Relapse Cycle in Fentanyl Addiction

My innovation addresses fentanyl use disorder by targeting the brain’s stress–addiction interface rather than opioid reward pathways. Chronic stress is a major driver of relapse, yet current treatments inadequately address stress-sensitive neural circuits. This solution focuses on the nucleus incertus, a stress-responsive brainstem hub enriched in relaxin-3 neurons that signal through RXFP3 receptors. By selectively modulating RLN3/RXFP3 signaling using agonists or antagonists, the approach aims to reduce stress-driven fentanyl seeking and relapse while preserving reward function. This represents a novel, non-opioid therapeutic strategy with strong translational and public health potential. I am excited to join the Babson College SUD Sprint 2026 to learn from fellow participants, mentors, and interdisciplinary perspectives that will strengthen the translational impact of this work.

Mike Garafalo is a behavioral health executive, licensed alcohol and drug counselor, certified addiction recovery coach, and startup founder whose work bridges lived experience, healthcare operations, and innovation. He currently serves as Director of Behavioral Health Operations at Fallon Health, where he leads large scale initiatives across value‑based care, provider partnerships, compliance, and performance improvement, driving measurable impact within complex behavioral health systems. Drawing on both clinical training and personal recovery, Mike is a co‑founder and business lead of a startup team selected for the 2025 NIDA Substance Use Disorder Startup Challenge, focused on developing scalable, person centered solutions that connect care systems, data, and lived experience. A person in long term recovery, husband, and father, Mike has been featured in regional and national media for his advocacy and leadership, and remains committed to building behavioral health systems that treat recovery as sustainable, measurable, and worthy of long‑term investment.  

I want to participate in the Babson SUD Sprint because it sits at the intersection of entrepreneurship, execution, and real‑world impact. Exactly where my work and experience are today. I’ve seen firsthand how fragmented systems fail people despite good intentions. Through my work launching RecPath and being selected for the 2025 NIDA Substance Use Disorder Startup Challenge, I’m at a critical stage where moving from concept to scalable, sustainable execution matters most. Babson’s emphasis on founder led innovation, disciplined experimentation, and building viable ventures aligns with my goal of creating solutions that are not only compassionate and person centered, but operationally sound, measurable, and fundable. The SUD Sprint offers the rigor, mentorship, and peer community needed to pressure test ideas and accelerate solutions that can meaningfully transform how recovery is supported.

RecPath

RecPath is a care coordination and navigation platform designed to support individuals with substance use disorder, particularly those involved with or transitioning from the justice system. The platform connects people to treatment, recovery supports, and community‑based services while improving communication and accountability across providers, case managers, and systems of care. Grounded in lived experience and informed by behavioral health operations, RecPath focuses on reducing fragmentation, improving continuity, and making recovery pathways more transparent, measurable, and accessible for both individuals and the systems serving them.

Hannah Haynie is a doctoral candidate in Medical and Health Sociology at Kent State University and the Executive Director of the Northwest Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center. Her work lives at the intersection of healthcare workforce development, addiction medicine education, and community health, and she has a habit of stepping into spaces that need someone to take ownership and making them better than she found them.

Hannah has presented her research at international conferences across the U.S. and Europe, secured over $70,000 in external funding as a principal investigator, and published work spanning provider readiness for medication-assisted treatment to global SUD curriculum development. She cares deeply about the gap between what we know works and what actually reaches patients—and Hannah is committed to closing it.

“I’m a sociologist-in-training and program builder who accidentally became an entrepreneur—and I’m just now realizing it. I've spent years writing grants, launching programs, and building coalitions across academic medicine and community health, but I’ve always handed the ‘what comes next’ question off to someone else.

This project is the first time I’ve created something I genuinely believe could change how providers are trained worldwide, and I don’t want to hand it off. I want to learn how to carry it forward myself. Babson’s SUD Sprint feels like the missing piece—the place where the science I’ve spent years building meets the business fluency I’ve never had the chance to develop. I’m ready to do the work and deliver results that reach the people who need them the most.”

From Global Curriculum Consensus to Accreditation Pathways: Advancing Culturally Responsive Standards for Substance Use Disorder Education

Despite how widespread substance use disorders are globally, there’s no shared playbook for training the healthcare providers who treat them. Depending on where you practice, your SUD education might be rigorous or nearly nonexistent—and patients pay the price.

My research used Group Concept Mapping to bring together interprofessional stakeholders from around the world and ask: what should every provider actually know? The result is a nine-cluster framework covering everything from the biology of addiction to cultural context to provider attitudes. I'm now working to turn that consensus into something real—a modular, accreditation-aligned curriculum toolkit that training programs can actually pick up and use, wherever they are.

I graduated UCSD with a B.A. in Applied Mathematics and a B.S. in Cognitive Science with a strong foundation in artificial intelligence. After working at the Salk Institute for three years, I pursued a Ph.D. at the Brandeis University in the lab of Dr. Leslie Griffith. I received my Ph.D. in 2013 as a seasoned fly electrophysiologist, but transitioned to Bioinformatics for my post-doc at UMass Worcester. Afterwards, I worked at Genentech as a Bioinformatician in Cancer and Immunology for eight years before pursuing my own company. I am a proud native of the San Francisco Bay Area, happily raising two children with my wife.

My particular challenge revolves around finding funding for an idea stage company. The funding environment is currently very challenging with “de-risking” as a major theme, and foundations and angel investors are few and difficult to identify. I seek to learn how to better advertise myself to investors of all types to get my project off the ground.

A Next Generation Targeted Analgesic Platform Drug

My drug will utilize a novel mechanism to deliver analgesics in a locally targeted, non-addictive manner that will improve both the efficacy and safety of existing analgesics.

I am the Co-founder and CEO of SUTOL Bio, an MIT Langer Lab spin-out developing next-generation drug delivery technologies. My background is in biomedical engineering and translational research, with a focus on implantable systems and oral drug delivery platforms designed for real-world clinical impact. At SUTOL Bio, I lead the development of a once-monthly oral capsule platform aimed at replacing daily pills and long-acting injectables for chronic diseases. Our work bridges advanced engineering, clinical needs, and regulatory strategy to bring scalable healthcare solutions to patients.

I want to deepen my understanding of entrepreneurship, commercialization, and scaling innovation in healthcare. As a founder, I am particularly interested in refining our business strategy, investor communication, and go-to-market approach. I believe this course will provide valuable insights, practical frameworks, and a strong network to accelerate the growth of SUTOL Bio and help translate our technology into real-world impact.

A Monthly Capsule for Opioid and Alcohol Use Disorder

We are developing a once-monthly oral capsule that delivers drugs continuously in the body, eliminating the need for daily medication or painful injections. The capsule self-assembles in the stomach and enables long-term, controlled drug release for over one month. This platform can be applied to over 100 FDA approved drugs, offering a faster, lower cost pathway to improve medication adherence and patient outcomes across multiple chronic diseases.

Marlene Lira is the CoFounder and CEO of Quel Health, a telehealth platform delivering GLP-1 medications for substance use disorders. She holds an MPH in epidemiology from Harvard and is a DrPH candidate at Johns Hopkins in health policy. Marlene brings fifteen years of experience in the addiction field spanning research, implementation, and operations in academic and digital health settings. Marlene's own experience taking tirzepatide and witnessing its unexpected effects on cravings and alcohol use catalyzed her decision to build Quel. The company currently serves approximately 150 patients and is raising its pre-seed round to scale nationally.

Quel is past the idea stage with active patients, proprietary clinical protocols, and a strategic partnership with one of the nation's largest addiction treatment centers. We are currently raising our pre-seed round and preparing to build our national infrastructure. This program offers exactly what we need at this inflection point: frameworks for commercializing a novel pharmacological approach in the SUD market, connections to the NIDA ecosystem, and peer learning from innovators whose solutions in diagnostics, monitoring, and behavioral support could complement our clinical model.

Quel Health: GLP-1 Telehealth for Substance Use

Quel Health is the first telehealth platform delivering compounded GLP-1 medications specifically for substance use disorders. Addiction, obesity, behavioral compulsions, and other reward-driven behaviors share a common root: a dysregulated brain reward system. GLP-1 receptor agonists directly modulate this circuitry, quieting the neurobiological drive behind cravings across substances and behaviors. Our physician-led protocols, developed by Steven Klein, MD, PhD, an addiction medicine specialist and a clinical pioneer leading the use of these medications, target the shared mechanism rather than treating one substance at a time. Quel currently serves approximately 150 patients and is building the clinical infrastructure to scale nationally.

Lance Lively is a health technology executive and the founder and CEO of Livelyhood, a startup innovating in the direct-to-consumer telemedicine space. Prior to founding Livelyhood, Lance held key leadership roles across the deep-tech and food-tech sectors, serving as VP and GM at The EVERY Company (eggs without the chicken) and COO at Biolumen (sugar-absorbing fiber). He brings a strong foundation in strategic growth and business management, drawing on his experience at McKinsey & Company. Lance is an alumnus of Princeton University and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. I am eager to join the Babson SUD Ventures course to contribute to a collaborative ecosystem of innovators working to transform behavioral health. By exchanging insights on novel clinical pathways for alcohol addiction, I hope to both learn from my peers and share my own experiences in health tech so we can collectively dismantle the stigma surrounding substance use disorders.

Breaking the addiction loop with GLP-1s

Pioneering access to anti-craving medications for people in recovery from alcohol use disorder

Nitish is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at the University of California Irvine Institute for Future Health. He specializes in fairness-aware causal inference and large language models for health applications. His research has been published in top-tier venues like IEEE Medicine & Biology and Elsevier Smart Health, American Heart Association, and the American Diabetes Association. He is the recipient of UC Irvine’s Beall Family Entrepreneur Award, the Technical University of Munich Young Academy Scholarship, and the Best Outgoing Student award in Electrical Engineering at R.V. College, India. Outside of work, he enjoys science communication and mentoring people from diverse backgrounds.

“I have seen how challenges related to access to care and associated stigma with mental health prevent people from getting the care they need. As a technologist, I want to build solutions that can overcome these challenges by creating a product that will benefit users who need it the most. Through the program, I am interested in learning about the research-driven mechanisms of substance abuse and ways to translate technology into a full-fledged venture.

I will add value to the cohort by sharing my skills and expertise in machine learning, synthetic data, and causality. I aim to work with partners, mentors, and providers to operationalize our product and scale our solution, thereby improving patient care. Finally, the program’s mission aligns with my vision of empowering people to lead a happier, healthier, and fulfilling life.”

Building the Intelligence Layer for Behavioral Health

People with substance abuse and mental health challenges struggle to keep up with their routines and seek assistance in rehabilitation centers. Current treatment centers face staff shortages and lack full insurance coverage. As a result, patients are not fully provided the care they truly need, necessitating the need for alternative monitoring solutions.

Therefore, we are building an integrated care environment for residential substance use treatment. Our platform seeks to reduce operational strain, improve care quality, and facilitate timely reimbursement.

Olaitan is a data driven innovator committed to improving maternal health through practical, AIenabled innovation. He is developing a predictive model that enhances early detection of Substance Use Disorder (SUD) risk in pregnancy, addressing a critical gap in feto-maternal care where traditional screening often misses early warning signs. His background includes creating deployable analytics tools, including winning the Best Applied Insight/Deployability Prize at the 2026 Vibe Coding Hackathon at UWM. He is now focused on translating this maternal health solution into a scalable product that can meaningfully support clinicians and mothers.

I want to participate in this course to gain the entrepreneurial guidance, mentorship, and practical frameworks needed to turn my AI enabled maternal health innovation into a scalable, real world solution. This program offers the expertise and support structure that will help me move from concept to commercialization and ensure the EMBRACE model reaches the clinicians and mothers who need it most.

EMBRACE - Early Maternal Behavioral Risk Recognition and Clinical Engagement

This innovation, called EMBRACE (Early Maternal Behavioral risk Recognition And Clinical Engagement), is an AI enabled clinical decision support tool design to enhances early detection of substance use disorder (SUD) risk in pregnancy. By combining traditional screening tools with routinely collected prenatal data, EMBRACE identifies subtle clinical, behavioral, and social patterns that often go unnoticed, giving providers earlier, more reliable, and non stigmatizing insight to guide supportive care for mothers.

I am an Instructor of Emergency Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. I have a PhD in Biomedical Informatics and have done many big data studies surrounding polysubstance use and on prescription drugs of high misuse potential. My current research interests have evolved to include how artificial intelligence techniques can be used to improve outcomes for patients with substance use disorder especially in the emergency department. Furthermore, I am also interested in how AI techniques can be used to improve the drug discovery process, especially to create prescription drugs for pain and mental health use disorder with low misuse potential.

I have been honored to be accepted to this program with a NIDA-funded scholarship. Through this program, I hope to gain the skills I need to successfully fulfill my dream of creating and running this startup. I also hope to learn from NIDA best ways of getting funded to commercialize this project. I would also like to learn more about strategies for recruiting the appropriate personnel to work with me in forming the startup as well as build my network to include those in the community who may be advisors now and in the future.

Artificial Intelligence Based Drug Discovery to Identify New Drugs with Less Misuse Potential

To my knowledge, currently, there are few to none AI-based efforts focused on identifying new drug targets specifically for pain, mental health disorders, and substance use disorders. Currently, we have many drugs of high misuse potential in the market (e.g. amphetamines, gabapentinoids, opioids, and benzodiazepines), and few effective alternatives to replace them. Furthermore, the drug discovery process, especially identifying drug targets is lengthy, and takes years. There is preliminary evidence in other domains that shows that AI can help speed up the process for drug discovery, from years, to months. Creating an AI startup specifically focused on identifying targets for better drugs to help improve outcomes for patients with pain and mental health disorders could accelerate discovery and create a very large impact on patient short and l

Jessica Siewert, CCHII, BHIS, a clinician-founder with 7+ years of experience in behavioral health and functional medicine, is driven to transform SUD treatment with innovative, evidence-backed solutions. Siewert is pioneering a promising solution for SUD treatment, leveraging personal experience and clinical expertise to drive innovation. The focus on circadian rhythm and autonomic nervous system function is a unique approach that stands out from the current treatments that treat SUDs. Specializing in treating comorbidities like brain injury and substance use, PTSD and associated neurological conditions with bespoke protocols.

Grateful: I'm honored to be participating in the Babson SUD Sprint to accelerate Luminary's impact, driven by my own experience with mTBI and recovery. I'm seeking top-tier mentorship, strategic partnerships, and rigorous pilot design to responsibly bring a non-intoxicating, THCfree solution to SUD treatment settings, addressing the complex interplay of pain, sleep, and nervous system regulation.

Luminary: A Transdermal Pathway to SUD Recovery Stability

Emerging research suggests that lack of sleep affects inflammatory signaling and histamine-related pathways that may amplify pain, anxiety, and sleep disruption factors that can worsen relapse risk. Luminary addresses a critical gap in SUD treatment: sleep disruption's role in cravings and treatment challenges. By improving sleep continuity, we aim to reduce stress reactivity, pain sensitivity, and cognitive impairment, supporting better treatment outcomes. With clear endpoints and rigorous evaluation, Luminary is poised to set a new standard for SUD care—a natural, nonintoxicating remedy with FDA approval. Luminary is a novel *FDA-approvable time released-medical grade 3M transdermal patch leveraging 0% THC CBD and proprietary herbal biotechnology to target circadian rhythm disruption and autonomic nervous system imbalance in SUD recovery.

Jackie Slaugenhaupt is the Co-Founder and President of Teetotal Initiative, a Pittsburgh-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit advancing innovative approaches to sustaining sobriety and recovery. Through free, high-quality events and programming, Teetotal Initiative addresses key drivers of return to use, including isolation, boredom, and lack of social connection, by creating consistent opportunities for engagement, belonging, and routine. Under her leadership, the organization has grown to serve thousands annually across Southwestern Pennsylvania, positioning social connection as a practical and scalable recovery support tool. In parallel, Jackie is the President of Project Enthusiast, LLC, where she works with nonprofits and businesses to move from idea to action. She helps define direction, design clear and practical plans for execution, and builds the processes and operating structure needed to make work happen, while staying engaged to guide implementation and ensure sustainable results. She brings over 25 years of experience in financial services, including leadership roles at institutions such as Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, and BNY Mellon, with deep expertise in enterprise change management, project management, process improvement, training, communications, and data visualization.

We’ve proven the concept at a community level, and the opportunity now is to evolve it into a more structured, repeatable model that can consistently support individuals over time while expanding its reach. Babson’s focus on entrepreneurship and commercialization is exactly what we need to take this work to the next level. I’m looking to refine how the model drives measurable relapse prevention impact, explore how technology can extend engagement and continuity between in person experiences, and build a clear framework for geographic expansion without losing quality. The goal is to translate what’s working into a scalable, durable solution that can reach more individuals and play a more defined role in long-term recovery support.

Advancing a Novel Recovery Modality into a Scalable, Sustainable Prevention Model

Teetotal Initiative is closing the most overlooked gap in the recovery ecosystem: the social, emotional, and lifestyle environments where sobriety and recovery are sustained. While clinical care and peer support are critical, they often do not extend into the unstructured time where isolation, boredom, and disconnection can increase the risk of return to use. Teetotal Initiative focuses on that space, creating consistent, accessible opportunities for connection, engagement, and routine that support individuals beyond formal systems of care. Its innovation lies in how it integrates recovery into everyday life. Rather than centering programming on treatment models, Teetotal designs experiences around how people naturally spend their time, building connection, exploring interests, and participating in community. This approach strengthens key protective factors and offers a scalable, real-world complement to traditional recovery services.

I am the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at Ember Therapeutics Corporation, an Assistant Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the Brown University School of Public Health, and a licensed clinical psychologist and biostatistician specializing in identifying immediate, situational antecedents and consequences of substance use. I am the PI of the Comprehensive Addiction Research Lab at Brown University, which conducts behavioral addiction science and intervention development research. Across these roles, I bring expertise in using technology to assess and intervene on behaviors in real time in naturalistic settings. I am passionate about improving the timeliness and quality of care and starting to deliver on the promise of precision medicine. To this end, my colleagues at Ember and I have started to develop products that integrate wearable biosensors with remote assessment and digital interventions, along with the platform that supports these technologies.

I want to participate in the Babson SUD Sprint program because I want formal training in entrepreneurship and commercialization, and I recognize that without it, my research risks staying within academic circles rather than driving meaningful change in the field. From the Babson SUD Sprint program, I hope to gain a practical foundation in commercialization strategies that can move our evidence-based product into real-world use. I also hope to connect with a network of entrepreneurs, clinicians, and investors working at the intersection of public health and innovation. Last, I am eager to receive guidance on identifying and securing early-stage funding for research-driven ventures and frameworks for making the critical decision between building a focused product versus a broader platform.

SmartTaper: Enhancing Remote Management of Clinician-Led Benzodiazepine Tapers

SmartTaper is designed for patients who are tapering from benzodiazepines and clinicians who are managing this deprescribing. Current clinical practice in benzodiazepine tapering inadequately implements up-to-date guidelines as there are few empirically-supported tools to facilitate safe, individualized discontinuation. Effective tapering requires ongoing monitoring and timely dose adjustments, but barriers to access and underreporting of symptoms undermine treatment success. Patients may also minimize or underreport withdrawal due to stigma, distress, or fear of discontinuation failure. As a result, clinicians are often unaware of problems until symptoms escalate into preventable adverse events, relapse, or treatment dropout. These gaps highlight the need for solutions that extend monitoring outside the clinic and provide rapid, data-driven feedback.

Hannah is a PhD-level clinical social worker who specializes in how technology can be responsibly used to promote behavioral and mental health equity. Hannah's work is at the intersections of implementation science, human-centered design, anti-oppressive practice, and community-based research. She both develops and tests digital health tools and interventions for patient populations that are often less prioritized within the current healthcare system. She also consults for the health tech industry and with policy makers on AI, mental health safety, and behavioral health promotion.

I want to learn how to make digital health tools accessible, sustainable, and impactful, beyond academic research.

uMAT-R: A digital health intervention prioritizing equity in addiction care

uMAT-R (pronounced “you matter”) is a mobile app digital health intervention that maintains contact with a population that is highly mobile by offering real-time support, including coaching, psychoeducation, and access to community resources. Intervention content has been iteratively shaped by feedback and recommendations from clients and community partners. Clients complete baseline, and one-month surveys, and app engagement data is also passively collected. Our team has demonstrated successful uptake of uMAT-R, improved SUD symptoms, and improved recovery outcomes. Over five years, our team has engaged nearly 2,000 adult clients who have used or are using opioids, stimulants, or both substances, who are lower-resourced, and who are seeking community-based addiction care across Missouri.

Wen-Jan Tuan, DHA MS MPH, is a clinical informaticist and health services researcher who develops data driven solutions to improve health care quality, efficiency, and equity. His work applies machine learning and real-world electronic health record data to design scalable clinical decision support and digital health tools, with a focus on chronic disease management and substance use disorder prevention. Dr. Tuan’s research emphasizes translation—moving analytic innovations from concept to clinical adoption by aligning clinical rigor with operational feasibility and stakeholder needs. He has received multiple federally and state funded research grants, including a five-year K01 career development award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and has developed decision support applications that have influenced safer prescribing and care delivery at scale.

My research focuses on developing data driven clinical decision support tools to prevent substance use disorders, with strong potential for real world impact. To move these innovations beyond academic settings and into routine clinical practice, I need deeper expertise in venture development, commercialization strategy, regulatory pathways, and stakeholder engagement. The Babson SUD SPRINT program offers a unique opportunity to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, learn from experienced founders and investors, and refine a clear value proposition and implementation pathway that can accelerate adoption and scale sustainable, patient centered solutions.

RxStimulantGuard: Intelligent decision support for safer prescribing

Description of project
RxStimulantGuard is an intelligence-based clinical decision support system (CDSS) designed to assess the risk of stimulant-related and other substance use disorders (SUD) among individuals receiving stimulant therapy. This CDSS tool addresses a critical and growing clinical need to ensuring safe, effective stimulant prescribing amid rising rates of substance use disorder and overdose. RxStimulantGuard leverages machine‑learning models trained on large‑scale, nationally representative electronic health record and claims data to identify and quantify the influence of demographic, medical, mental health, and health‑care utilization factors associated with subsequent SUD and overdose events. In addition to providing generalized risk stratification to inform clinical decision‑making, RxStimulantGuard is capable of incorporating transfer learning techniques to adapt national models to local clinical and geo‑socioeconomic contexts, ensuring relevance across diverse health systems and community settings.

Beyond its predictive capabilities, RxStimulantGuard incorporates user interfaces whose functionality and usability are systematically evaluated and refined based on clinical guidelines, expert input, and feedback from clinicians who prescribe stimulants. This iterative, user‑centered approach ensures that the tool is optimally designed, seamlessly integrated, and efficiently streamlined within routine clinical care. Moreover, the intelligence‑based CDSS platform supports real‑time, automated learning from newly incoming data, enhancing flexibility, and providing more personalized treatment decisions. This digital health tool can be deployed as a standalone application or integrated into existing electronic health record platforms, enabling broad adoption across diverse health systems while minimizing implementation burden and maximizing clinical impact.

Dr. Balazs Varga is a translational drug discovery scientist with expertise in medicinal chemistry, chemical biology, structure-based ligand design, and GPCR pharmacology. He is currently a Senior Scientist at UHSP/Washington University in St. Louis, where his work focuses on therapeutically selective modulation of receptor signaling for neurological, psychiatric, pain, and substance use-related disorders. His research has contributed to first-in-class bitopic ligands, GPCR allosteric modulation strategies, compounds advancing toward clinical development, multiple patent applications, and publications in journals including Nature and Nature Communications. He is developing non-hallucinogenic 5-HT2A agonists as a potentially scalable therapeutic approach for neuropsychiatric and behavioral health conditions, including substance use disorders.

I want to participate in Babson SUD Sprint because our project is at an early stage where entrepreneurial guidance can strongly shape its direction. We are developing non-hallucinogenic 5-HT2A agonists with potential relevance to substance use disorders, but we need to better understand where this approach fits within the SUD ecosystem, which indications and stakeholders are most appropriate, and what evidence will be needed to support a credible path forward. I hope to use the course to refine our value proposition, pressure-test our assumptions, and build a practical roadmap for translating the science into a scalable therapeutic opportunity.

NonHallucinogeni c 5-HT2A Agonists

We are developing non-hallucinogenic 5-HT2A agonists that aim to separate the therapeutic potential of psychedelic-target biology from the perceptual effects that limit scalability. Our goal is to create a treatment approach that is practical for outpatient use, with lower monitoring burden, reduced stigma, and broader access than traditional psychedelic-based therapies. We have validated the separation of hallucinogenic and therapeutic effects in two preclinical pain models and hope to extend this work into substance use disorder models.