George Mason delivers first commercialization under Virginia’s Lab-to-Launch initiative

George Mason University has become Virginia’s first R1 research institution to commercialize a product under the state’s new Lab-to-Launch initiative, marking an early milestone in the commonwealth’s push to accelerate university research into the market.  

In January, the George Mason Research Foundation entered into a license agreement with serial entrepreneur Anthony Fung and his company Valorlox LLC for the patented technology GMU Dynamic Low Visibility Pneumatic Cofferdam, a coastal resilience system designed to protect against flooding. This is the first commercial product to move forward under the new statewide commercialization framework. 

Invented at George Mason by George L. Donohue, professor emeritus and founding director of the Center for Air Transportation Systems Research at the College of Engineering and Computing, the cofferdam is an inflatable, permanently anchored system that when deployed creates a water-tight barrier in under 16 minutes without heavy equipment to protect vulnerable communities from most flood events. When not deployed, the system functions as a low-profile boardwalk, blending into waterfront environments rather than standing as a permanent wall. 

The cofferdam’s potential to protect communities from floods while supporting economic growth is what attracted Fung, the Valorlox LLC founder and the commonwealth’s former deputy secretary of technology. 

His support—as well as that of the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation (VIPC) and Mason Enterprise—has helped move the project toward commercialization. Valorlox is the first company in Virginia to complete a Virginia Fast-Track License, which enables them to apply for up to $50,000 in VIPC commercialization funding. 

“The cofferdam project brings together everything I’ve learned about business, government, innovation, and solving real problems,” said Fung. “It’s exactly the kind of challenge I want to tackle.” 

The cofferdam’s commercialization demonstrates how the Lab-to-Launch initiative is intended to work: university research, streamlined licensing, and experienced entrepreneurs working together to move innovation into the marketplace. The team is currently working on a prototype.  

Developed through a collaboration between VIPC and the state’s six R1 research university partners—George Mason University, Old Dominion University, University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Tech, and William & Mary—the Lab-to-Launch initiative aims to significantly increase the number of startups emerging from Virginia’s universities and help move technological breakthroughs to the marketplace, through a “fast track license.” Instead of taking months, a licensing agreement can now take weeks. 

“It’s been a strategy for the last five years,” said Paula Sorrell, George Mason’s associate vice president for innovation and economic development. “George Mason has created several programs to support the lab-to-market activities by providing wrap-around services for faculty.  This not only helped build the pipeline of technologies ready for market and created the support system to make them successful, but then got this first technology through this terrific new state program.” 

Designed for both commercial and residential use, the cofferdam system has potential applications for protecting homes, apartments, airports, military bases, hospitals, data centers, power generation facilities, tunnels, bridges, and rail systems. 

“The potential for property damage avoidance in the future is hard to estimate, but could be huge,” Donohue said.  

The invention has been years in development and Donohue shares the patents with former students, now George Mason alumni Adel Youssef, BS Systems Engineering ’20; Lucciana Remy, BS Systems Engineering ’20; Faris Masri, BS Systems Engineering ’20; and Murat Gokturk, BS Systems Engineering ’20. 

The George Mason Research Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and aiding research and scientific investigation at George Mason. GMRF manages patents and commercializes intellectual property by negotiating licensing agreements with motivated entrepreneurs and members of the business community. George Mason has a number of technologies moving toward commercialization through the Lab-to-Launch initiative. 

Mason Enterprise^TM is the host to federal, state, and local programs that support a portfolio of more than 33,000 start-ups and small businesses across Virginia. Last year participating companies received more than $2.8 billion in follow-on funding, and more than 58,000 entrepreneurs, small business owners, students, and research faculty attended workshops and educational programs, received individual counseling, were assisted with product development, resided in an incubator, or received intellectual property advice. 

The commercialization of the cofferdam technology also supports Building a Climate-Resilient Society, one of the six interconnected solutions of George Mason’s Grand Challenge Initiative, a comprehensive research framework to secure the future we want. Learn more.