Amanda Corbel is the partnership alliance manager at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR), the only federal laboratory focused solely on biomedical research. Within the Center for Innovation and Strategic Partnerships, Amanda supports the FNLCR’s mission to accelerate progress against cancer and AIDS by creating partnerships between the lab’s scientists and external research communities. She also manages programs that aim to advance scientific discoveries and inventions through the development pipeline to de-risk and attract technologies for both partnering and licensing.
Amanda has been an active member of the FLC since 2020, and she is deeply involved in the Mid-Atlantic Region activities. She has supported the current Mid-Atlantic Regional and Deputy Regional Coordinators in surveying and meeting various laboratories in the region to learn more about their technology transfer, licensing and business development activities. By engaging the labs, they identified common problems across the agencies. This process led to a pilot program, the Federal Lab Education Accelerator (FLEX), to address a common lack necessary resources for active marketing, licensing and general technology assessment FLEX fosters long-term collaborations between federal labs and academic institutions by connecting entrepreneurial students with federal labs’ technology portfolios. Amanda has led FLEX since its launch in 2021, and as the FLEX program manager, she maintains close relationships with the participating federal laboratories' tech transfer staff and inventors. FLEX has now expanded to all FLC regions, and all federal labs are invited to join. Currently, more than 20 federal labs and 10 universities are participating in FLEX, and the FLEX portfolio includes more than 100 federal technologies.
In addition to her role in the FLEX program, Amanda is a member of the FLC Facilitate Committee. As a member of the Facilitate Committee, she works with committee members on ways to increase engagement and partnerships that connect the private sector with federal laboratories. She also helped plan and organize the 2021 Mid-Atlantic & Northeast Regional Meeting, 2022 Mid-Atlantic Partnering for Economic Development Meeting and FLC FLEX Program Member Connect.
She holds a BS in biology from Shepherd University and an MS in biotechnology and business management from Mount Saint Mary’s University. She is also a certified project management professional through the Project Management Institute. She is currently pursuing her PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.