SPR Advanced Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in November, 2014 to commercialize a patented technology platform that was developed with support from two grants provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Proof of concept testing funded by the Gates Foundation suggested that the company's technology may introduce durable self-cleaning and anti-microbial properties to treated materials and surfaces, using concepts of applied physics. In early 2015, SPR became 1 of only 12 companies selected from more than 1,500 applicants to be awarded a high six figure grant by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United States Department of Defense and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The purpose of the grant was to fund testing to confirm that SPR's technology could provide health care workers with an additional layer of protection from highly infectious diseases, such as Ebola, when using personal protective equipment (PPE) pre-treated with SPR's technology. For most of 2015 and 2016, SPR worked in partnership with several third party materials science and national testing laboratories, in addition to prospective commercial partners, to validate the academic science underlying the company's intellectual property. In the fall of 2016, SPR completed the seventh and final milestone in its federal grant, at which point the company and its Advisory Board concluded that the academic science had not been sufficiently validated to confirm the commercial viability of the technology.