Stem Pharm, a biotech startup out of the University of Wisconsin, has received $290,000 from the National Institutes of Health, the university announced today.

According to a release, the money will help the company’s continued development of sophisticated biological materials that can efficiently manufacture stem cells for medical use.

“We have discovered environments where cells that grow on a biomaterial with the right properties can self-assemble into their own three-dimensional tissue,” Stem Pharm Co-Founder and CSO William Murphy said in a statement. “That becomes exciting for drug discovery.”

In 2017, the company looks to market systems that drug makers can use to evaluate the safety and utility of drugs for treating blood vessels, liver and nerve tissue.

Murphy also is an UW-Madison Department of Biomedical Engineering professor.