By Stephen Johnson
MCLEAN, VA – More than 300 technology researchers, entrepreneurs and investors gathered at the McLean Hilton on Friday for the Mid-Atlantic Innovation Showcase sponsored by the Business Alliance of George Mason University. The event showcased successful examples of technology transfer by regional universities.
It brought together speakers, panelists and exhibitors from academic institutions, federal research laboratories, early-stage technology firms and venture capitalists.
Universities represented included William and Mary; Eastern Virginia Medical School; George Mason University; The George Washington University; Hampton University; Johns Hopkins University; James Madison University; Old Dominion University; the University of Maryland-Baltimore; the University of Maryland-College Park; the University of Virginia; Virginia Commonwealth University, and Virginia Tech.
More than 125 faculty inventors from these institutions displayed the commercial applications of their research.
For example, George Mason University researchers Lance Liotta and Emanuel Petricoin’s discoveries in protein biomarker-based research will soon enable physicians to develop individualized treatment plans that match the right patient with the right drug.
Another exhibitor, the University of Virginia’s Patent Foundation, evaluates intellectual property generated in the course of research at UVA, seeks to protect those inventions that show commercial potential and licenses those rights to industry.
The Patent Foundation reviews and evaluates about 175 inventions per year, and typically a third of these are successfully licensed to commercial partners for further development and commercial use. Of the inventions licensed to industry, nearly half are licensed to UVA-affiliated start-up companies.
Another exhibitor, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), ranks among the top 100 universities in the country in sponsored research.
The core competencies and technologies at VCA include medical devices; non-invasive medical technologies; wound healing and tissue engineering; cancer diagnostics and therapies; nanotechnologies; bio- and chemical sensors; surgical care and devices, and trauma care devices and techniques.
Federal laboratories represented included NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; NASA Langley; the Federal Labs Consortium; the Naval Research Lab, the U.S. Army Medical Technology Transfer program, and the Agricultural Research Service at U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Aneesh P. Chopra, Virginia’s Secretary of Technology, told the gathering that “technology doesn’t accomplish anything if untapped.
Circuits, sensors, polymers and other technologies are inert unless people with the vision for converting this research into a useful product connect, work together and innovate.”
In his keynote address, Dr. Stan Sloane, President and CEO of Fairfax, Virginia-based SRA International, noted that the value of research and development continues to increase as a percentage of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and that private sector R&D accounts for an increasing share of overall R&D.
With $1.5 billion in revenue this year, SRA International is one the nation’s leading technology and strategic consulting firms. Asked to speculate on the incoming Obama Administration’s research and development priorities, Sloane highlighted cyber security and health.
David J. Brady, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke University, spoke on “Taking Innovation from the University Lab to the Market” at a luncheon co-sponsored by the Business Alliance of George Mason University, the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association (MAVA) and the Academic Licensing Community of Virginia (ALCOVe).
Brady is also Chief Scientist of Centice Corporation, which manufactures the PASS Rx pharmaceutical authentication systems.
Brady has pushed innovations to products from Duke using venture-backed, bootstrap, consulting and licensing strategies. He played a central role in growing Centice from an MBA case study to winner of the 2004 Duke Startup Challenge, the 2005cNorth Carolina Center for Entrepreneurial Spin-out of the Year and the 2006 R&D 100 Award.
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