Author: Marie Powers

Scientists at Stanford University are harnessing nanotechnology to produce ultra-lightweight, bendable batteries and supercapacitors in the form of everyday paper. Coating a sheet of paper with ink made of carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires makes a highly conductive storage device, according to Yi Cui, PhD, assistant professor of materials science and engineering. “These nanomaterials are special,” Cui explains. “They’re a one-dimensional structure with very small diameters.” The small diameter helps the nanomaterial ink stick to the fibrous paper, making the battery and supercapacitor very durable. The paper supercapacitor may last through 40,000 charge-discharge cycles — at least an order of magnitude more than lithium batteries. The nanomaterials also make ideal conductors because they move electricity more efficiently than ordinary conductors, Cui maintains.

Cui previously created nanomaterial energy storage devices using plastics. His research shows that a paper battery is more durable because the ink adheres better to paper. Crumpling or folding the paper battery — even soaking it in acidic or basic solutions — does not degrade its performance, allowing for many clever applications. “This technology has the potential to be commercialized within a short time,” says Peidong Yang, professor of chemistry at the University of California-Berkeley. “I don’t think it will be limited to just energy storage devices.” Cui’s work was reported online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source: Science Daily

A Cornell University researcher has created an efficient transistor from a material that may soon replace silicon as king of semiconductors for power applications. Junxia Shi, a graduate student in the laboratory of Lester Eastman, PhD, the John Given Foundation professor of engineering, developed the patent-pending device, which could form the basis for the circuitry in products from laptops to hybrid vehicles to windmills and other power electronic systems. The basic electrical switch is constructed from the compound gallium nitride, a material with unique electrical properties that Eastman and colleagues have been studying for more than a decade. The transistor’s on-resistance — or measure of resistance to electric current — is 10 to 20 times lower than today’s silicon-based power devices. It also has a high breakdown voltage — a measure of how much voltage can be applied across a material before it fails. Research on the device was published in Applied Physics Letters.

At the heart of improving electronics is the ability to make devices that can switch electricity from high voltage to high current while minimizing power loss, according to Eastman. “Power has to go from A to B in a machine with a high voltage transmission line to minimize power loss,” he says. “Before now, there were no electronic devices that could handle both high current and the high voltage, but our device can do it.” The transistors might one day power everything from hybrid electric vehicles to Navy destroyers. In fact, the U.S. Navy first funded Cornell’s research into gallium nitride transistors more than 10 years ago and is a major funder of Eastman’s research today. Shi and Eastman have a provisional patent on their device. The New Jersey-based company Velox and Motorola spinoff Freescale helped fund the research with the hope of producing the devices on an industrial scale.

Source: Innovations Report

A University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) investigator who is an expert marksman has found a more intuitive way to aim a pistol. Timothy Kraft, PhD, associate professor in UAB’s Vision Science Research Center, has developed a gunsight design that relies on subconscious ability. Opti-sight, a UAB-protected innovation, updates a pistol-aiming device that has remained unchanged for more than a century. The innovation promises to reduce the time law enforcement, professional, and amateur shooters need for target practice to improve marksmanship. Opti-sight is a precision-milled half-triangle shape that replaces the traditional pistol gunsight. The design relies on subjective contours — an optics principle that explains how the subconscious mind fills in the blanks when the eye sees half of a familiar shape like a circle, square, or triangle.

The rear opti-sight notch looks like an incomplete triangle sitting atop the gun barrel. When a shooter peers through the notch, the brain tells the eye where the missing triangle apex should appear, and that apex is the precise point of aim, Kraft explains. “This triangular shape that I’ve created allows the brain to visualize concentric triangles whose imaginary apexes focus the shooter’s attention on the exact target bulls-eye,” he says. “Opti-sight makes shooting intuitive by allowing gunsight alignment to become subconscious.” Kraft worked with members of the U.S. Olympic pistol team to test the Opti-sight design.

Source: Newswise

On January 27, serial inventor and innovation expert Nicholas Webb will headline a distance learning event you won’t want to miss: “Shrink Wrap” Your University’s Technologies for Industry: Packaging Your Innovations to Minimize Corporate Risk and Extract Optimum Licensing Value. He’ll show participants how to present IP with a solid, in-depth market analysis and adopt proven analytical methods used by corporations to identify and plug any holes that could affect valuation. Attendees will gain unique insights into how to meet and exceed corporate expectations, and de-risk IP for a faster, smoother and more lucrative deal. CLICK HERE for full details.

Also, join us on January 6 for Successful Outsourcing for Tech Transfer Organizations. Our expert faculty will focus on how to implement an effective outsourcing strategy to reduce your backlog of invention files, get more deals done, and boost faculty relations. A detailed case study of Texas Tech University’s outsourcing experience will provide valuable takeaways and lessons learned. CLICK HERE for full details.

In his blog, VC Deal Lawyer, corporate transactional attorney Christopher McDemus observes that everyone in the venture community can share a horror story about a start-up or emerging growth company that stumbled early. Sometimes these blunders can be fixed, but often they represent a death blow, says McDemus, who offers this list of 15 common mistakes that high growth start-ups should avoid:

1. Making poor hires early and not firing fast enough. Avoid the “C-level hire” with an incredible Fortune 500 resume but zero start-up or emerging growth experience. “Never hire someone solely on the basis that listing their former employer on your pitch slides looks great,” McDemus writes. In addition, beware the hire who claims to bring strategic assets that can only be realized after joining the company. If someone professes to have the contacts to help you raise $3M or land the 10 largest clients in your target market, condition his or her compensation on delivering that promise. If you do hire someone who isn’t working out, move on quickly. “It may cost you, but not as much as it would in the long run,” McDemus says.
2. Failing to assemble the correct management team. Invest in the jockey over the horse. “Investors don’t want you learning on their nickel,” McDemus points out. Demonstrate that you have talent that knows the space and can make lemonade out of lemons, if necessary.
3. Promising equity to individuals up front. Never strike a deal for a lead employee to work “for 10% of the company.” Instead, ask hard questions: What kind of stock does the employee think he or she is getting? When and how is the 10% measured? Is the number of shares represented by the 10% calculated on a fully diluted basis or not? And get the deal in writing.
4. Failing to properly structure founder shares. If a founder receives all of his or her shares up front and fully vested, there’s no incentive to stick around and help build the company. Vest founder shares gradually and issue them as restrictive stock grants — for example, 400,000 shares of common stock, vesting annually/monthly/quarterly over four years. If the founder stays four years, he or she keeps all of shares. If the founder leaves early, he or she keeps some and the company buys back the remainder at the same price the founder paid.
5. Selecting the wrong type of business entity and structuring early ownership 50/50. If you plan to seek outside investors, go with a corporate structure, McDemus advises. “You avoid the issue of VC funds requiring blocking entities — a result of some of their limited partners being non-profit companies — and the possible need to convert your limited liability company to a corporation at a later date.” In ventures with two founders, “find some difference between yourselves to rationalize one person taking 51% of the ownership,” he adds. Absent complicated provisions to break a deadlock, 50/50 deals result in a standoff the minute the founders disagree.
6. Failing to consult experienced advisors at the beginning. Avoid many novice mistakes simply by hiring experienced start-up and emerging growth attorneys and accountants from the get-go. You’ll save time and money in the long run because you’ll eliminate an expensive clean up down the road.
7. Not having a clear business plan. Focus, focus, focus. If you try to become all things to all people, you’ll end up being nothing to nobody.
8. Raising too much or too little money. Too much money buys complacency — along with many of the mistakes cited here. Too little money cuts short your runway before you can launch your product. “Look into the future as best you can and consider how much money you will need to reach the next fundraising stage,” McDemus says.
9. Failing to properly document early agreements. Hire experienced counsel to help you prepare shareholders’ agreements between the founders; founder share agreements and possible 83(b) elections; non-competition, non-solicitation, confidentiality, and invention assignment agreements for employees; and appropriate equity compensation, or stock option, plans. Seek guidance on external agreements such as customer contracts, service agreements, licensing agreements, and office leases to ensure they contain appropriate protections.
10. Raising early money without complying with securities laws. No matter how you slice or dice it, if you sell a stake in your company — from the issuance of founder shares to the issuance of stock to VC funds — you must comply with federal and state (blue sky) securities laws. Poorly structured transactions can derail future fundraising or cost the company tens of thousands of dollars to rectify.
11. Poor cash management and spending money on the wrong things. California Historic Landmark No. 976 — the modest “garage” where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started Hewlett-Packard in 1939 — epitomizes boot-strapping. Think about every dollar that goes out the door and what you receive in return. Show investors you have the discipline to manage your cash to reach positive cash flow.
12. Failing to identify a market for the product or service. Don’t invest time and money into building a product or service before you’ve considered who will buy it, and don’t focus on product capabilities without considering whether potential customers need them.
13. Failing to re-invent on the go. “Improvise, adapt, and overcome” is the perfect mantra for an early stage start-up, McDemus says. Have the ability to turn the ship on a dime and take a different tack on a problem.
14. Getting stuck on valuation rather then getting committed funds. Place a higher negotiating priority on liquidation preference and dilution than on valuation. Don’t let hang-ups over valuation stifle your chance of closing on committed funds. “Without funds, there is no business,” McDemus points out.
15. Failing to build a sustainable business around the IP. The only way to monetize IP is to build a sustainable business around it. This is the gap university TTOs try to overcome on a daily basis by partnering with entrepreneurs who can license the IP and take it to market.

Source: VC Deal Lawyer

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, MD, has licensed two patents to Genesis Electronics Group, Inc., covering a compact power source that produces electricity from solar energy. Designed to be thin and extremely flexible, the self-contained power source can fit a variety of applications — even taking the shape of the device it powers. Florida-based Genesis plans to integrate the technology into solar-powered chargers for cell phones and related hand-held electronic devices. The company is finalizing development of a solar-powered charger called SunBlazer, which it expects to release within the next several months. “The invention enables batteries in small electronic appliances to be charged and deliver power more effectively,” explains APL’s Joe Suter, PhD, principal staff scientist in the APL’s space department and co-inventor of the device. “You can even shrink the size of the battery.” The licensing agreement gives Genesis limited exclusive worldwide rights to the U.S. patents, with the potential for APL to provide research and development assistance.

Source: Corridor, Inc.

Researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have created a single nanoparticle that can be tracked by MRI in real time as it homes in on cancer cells, tags them with a fluorescent dye, and kills them with heat. The all-in-one particle is one of the first examples from a growing field called “theranostics” that develops technologies physicians can use to diagnose and treat diseases in a single procedure. “Some of the most essential questions in nanomedicine today are about biodistribution — where particles go inside the body and how they get there,” says study co-author Naomi Halas, PhD, Stanley C. Moore professor in electrical and computer engineering and professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering at Rice. “Noninvasive tests for biodistribution will be enormously useful on the path to FDA approval, and this technique — adding MRI functionality to the particle you’re testing and using for therapy — is a very promising way of doing this.”

The all-in-one particles are based on nanoshells — particles Halas invented in the 1990s that are currently in human clinical trials for cancer treatment. Nanoshells harvest laser light that would normally pass harmlessly through the body and convert it into tumor-killing heat. To design the new particle, Halas partnered with Amit Joshi, PhD, assistant professor in BCM’s Division of Molecular Imaging, to modify nanoshells by adding a fluorescent dye that glows when struck by near-infrared (NIR) light. NIR light is invisible and harmless, so NIR imaging could provide doctors with a means of diagnosing diseases without surgery. Graduate student Rizia Bardhan found that dye molecules emitted 40 to 50 times more light if a tiny gap was left between them and the surface of the nanoshell. In the gap — just a few nanometers wide — Bardhan inserted a layer of iron oxide that would be detectable with MRI. The researchers also attached an antibody that lets the particles bind to the surface of breast and ovarian cancer cells.

So far, tests involve laboratory cell cultures, but the researchers say MRI tracking will be particularly advantageous as they move toward tests in animals and people. The next step is to destroy whole tumors in live animals, Joshi says, estimating that human clinical trials are at least two years away. The research was published online in Advanced Functional Materials.

Source: Bioscience Technology

In his blog on start-ups and university entrepreneurship, serial entrepreneur and angel investor David B. Lerner summarizes some observations made by VCs at the annual University Startups Conference held recently in Washington, DC, hosted by the National Council for Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET). “Through the course of multiple panels and discussions, a good cross-section of venture investors from very reputable firms weighed in candidly on both what they like to see and what they don’t like to see when they try to spin-out companies from university tech transfer offices,” Lerner writes. “Many colorful stories were exchanged, to say the least.”

Lerner offers some quick bullets “straight from the proverbial horses’ mouth” that may help TTOs position university technologies favorably.

VC’s like to see:

• Platform technologies
• Great faculty “stars,” great scientists, and great science
• Rich entrepreneurial culture and community throughout the university
• A “go-to person” at the TTO who has entrepreneurial experience
• A TTO that’s “all about throughput” and getting deals done quickly
• Deal terms that are flexible, recognizing that “business models change over time”

VC’s do not like to see:

• Slow-moving offices that take too long to complete a deal
• “Mismatches” in the respective legal counsel in terms of the turnaround time, skill, and expertise
• “Greedy” TTOs with onerous deal terms
• “Big egos” at the TTO that obstruct deals
• Business plans. “VCs prefer to have a short summary and decide for themselves,” Lerner says.

Source: David B. Lerner

A drug to treat major depression that was created and patented by a team of University of South Florida researchers is poised to bring millions of dollars in royalties to the university. London-based AstraZeneca plc and Targacept, Inc., of Winston-Salem, NC, have entered a collaboration and license agreement for the global development and commercialization of the drug, TC-5214, as it enters final stages of testing. TC-5214 was licensed to Targacept by the USF Research Foundation, which will be paid a portion of the royalties as the drug moves to market. Although financial details of the agreement with Targacept are confidential, Valerie McDevitt, USF’s assistant vice president for research, says the drug would be USF’s most lucrative patent to date, generating revenue “in the range of millions of dollars.”

Under the agreement, AstraZeneca will make an up-front payment of $200 million to Targacept when the drug’s effectiveness is demonstrated. Additional payments of up to $540 million would be made upon completion of specified development, regulatory, and first commercial sale milestones. Targacept also would be eligible to receive up to $500 million if specified sales-related milestones are achieved. As the patent holder, USF will receive a cut of the funds at each stage of development.

TC-5214 is the invention of USF researchers Paul Sanberg, PhD, distinguished university professor and director of the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair, and Douglas Shytle, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine; retired USF psychiatry professor Archie Silver; and former student Mary Newman, PhD, now a research scientist and associate professor at Rush University Medical Center. While searching for an effective treatment for children with Tourette syndrome, the researchers discovered a nearly forgotten blood pressure medicine that helped children whose Tourette syndrome also included depression. Eventually, they created a unique version of the medicine, which was patented in the U.S. and abroad.

Sources: Tampa Bay Business Journal and St. Petersburg Times

Three popular royalty rate references offered by Tech Transfer E-News parent company 2Market Information Inc., in partnership with IPRA Inc., have just been made available in PDF format for purchasers who wish to access the information immediately and avoid shipping-related costs and delays due to print version delivery. The three volumes — Royalty Rates for Technology, 4th Edition; Royalty Rates for Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology, 6th Edition; and Royalty Rates for Trademarks and Copyright, 4th Edition – are authored by royalty rate and IP valuation expert Russell Parr. Each reference includes scores of actual deal terms, put in context with descriptions of the IP assets, markets, and companies involved. These are invaluable data sets for all IP licensing and tech transfer professionals. For complete details and to order, CLICK HERE.

Toronto-based Baycrest, a cognitive science institute affiliated with the University of Toronto, has created a company with MaRS, a nonprofit innovation center in Toronto, to develop and market brain fitness products designed to help adults extend their memory and cognitive abilities. The for-profit company, Cogniciti, will produce a suite of products, games, and training protocols grounded in 20 years of aging brain research at Baycrest. Test marketing will begin next year for the company’s first product, Memory@Work. The corporate training program will teach employees, managers, and team leaders how to use memory strategies to improve personal performance in the workplace. Other products in the test marketing pipeline include brain exercise games for mobile devices and the web. “Converting Baycrest’s outstanding cognitive science research into products and services for the important and rapidly growing brain fitness market represents a very promising opportunity,” says MaRS CEO Ilse Treurnicht, PhD. “Leading scientists at Baycrest have been working with MaRS for the past three years to assemble and shape the research assets and develop the commercialization plan for Cogniciti. The formal launch of the company is a very exciting milestone for both our organizations.”

The company will develop products based on current knowledge of brain functioning and continually validate their efficacy in different populations, according to Donald Stuss, PhD, senior scientist at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute, who will provide scientific leadership in product development. The exercise and training interventions will target “strategic” cognitive functions that matter most in people’s lives, including planning and organizing, staying focused on a task, and ignoring irrelevant information. Cogniciti is using an interactive research model for product testing to identify the best cognitive training platforms for customer needs and enable fast-tracking of products from science lab to market.

Source: The Medical News

The University of Florida has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Sathguru Management Consultants, a Hyderabad, India, technology management services company. The agreement makes UF technologies available for development in Asia through licensing and other commercialization initiatives. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The oldest tech transfer firm in South Asia, Sathguru Management Consultants has expertise in strategic advisory, sector growth assessment, technology management, and information technology services to public and private enterprises. The MoU creates a partnership designed to join resources and expertise from the two organizations to commercialize sustainable technologies in agriculture, nutrition, health care, and other life sciences, environmental, and clean technologies. The agreement represents UF’s second deal in as many months with an outside party designed to accelerate commercialization. (See also here.)

Source: India PRwire

The Huntsville, AL, nonprofit business incubator BizTech and the University of Alabama in Huntsville have formed a partnership called the Technology Innovation and Commercialization Alliance. The collaboration will “provide a continuum of care for companies, entrepreneurs, faculty, and students” and “an outlet for intellectual properties developed at UAH,” says businessman David Karabinos, who chairs the BizTech board. Located adjacent to the university, BizTech focuses on assisting start-ups and small companies in information technology, energy, biotechnology, and health care by providing office space, mentoring, access to investors, training, and business support services. The three-year agreement will complement the university’s tech transfer mission by providing an incubator for IP commercialization, a “home” for the university’s spinoff companies, and a location for UAH students to gain real-world entrepreneurial experience. “The proximity was a factor,” says Kannan Grant, director of UAH’s Office of Technology Commercialization. “Students can cross the street to be interns for the spinoffs.” At the same time, BizTech will benefit from getting a number of highly qualified client prospects with varying degrees of developed IP. “A lot of ideas fall dead on the floor because they had no way to be realized,” Karabinos says. “We developed the outlet for them.”

Source: Alabama Live

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have spun out nearly two dozen companies that use computer technology to convert text to synthesized speech or human speech to text, sort vast amounts of text, and even translate human speech into synthesized speech of another language. One of the newest technologies to hit the market was developed by Alex Waibel, CMU professor of computer science and language technology, who heads the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies, or InterACT, at the university’s Language Technologies Institute. Around 1990, Waibel began writing programs to translate English spoken into a microphone into synthetic Spanish coming back through a computer speaker. Now, he has a $24.99 iPhone app that can spit back up to 40,000 words — from English to Spanish, or vice versa — within about three seconds. The program allows an English speaker with no foreign language knowledge to visit a Spanish-speaking country and converse, and a Spanish-only speaker can do the same to communicate in English. Waibel launched the technology through his start-up company Jibbigo, Inc., which stands for “the gibberish of language on the go.”

The technology doesn’t require users to type anything or to connect to a server and ring up a big phone bill from abroad. The voice recognition, language translation, and speech synthesis capabilities are built into the cell phone. “That means you can use it in the remotest village or on a plane or in the military without the enemy detecting where you are,” says Waibel, who intends for Jibbigo to target health care workers in developing nations and government installations overseas. To use the app, the user speaks a sentence, such as, “Where is the nearest hospital?” into the iPhone. Within three seconds, the device repeats the sentence in the opposite language. To erase and rephrase the sentence, the user just shakes the iPhone. “So far, it’s English to Spanish and Spanish to English,” Waibel says. “But in the next six months, we hope to have four more languages.” A laptop version already handles seven languages.

Source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

When it comes to promoting an environment that’s conducive to research commercialization and innovation, some schools stand out as exemplary in taking an aggressive, active role in shaping a entire culture of entrepreneurialism. The University of Maryland (UM) is one of those schools, and its Technology Start-Up Boot Camp plays a critical role in shaping that culture — as well as fueling technology transfer efforts. “The end goal for us is to create a culture of entrepreneurship pervasive throughout campus. Everything we do is to promote the culture, and that was the idea behind our boot camp when we started 10 years ago,” says Dean Chang, PhD, director of ventures and education at the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech). Chang also serves as director of UM’s Technology Advancement Program.

A decade ago, the intensive, one-day workshop and networking event was launched to promote the school’s Hinman CEOs, an experimental initiative that placed entrepreneurially minded undergraduates from all academic disciplines in a dorm together, where they could learn how to launch new ventures in a 24/7 environment that oozed entrepreneurial spirit. The Hinman CEOs community has grown and spawned numerous companies and entrepreneurs, but that original boot camp has also evolved into a premier event for UM, promoted now not only to undergraduates but also to faculty, staff and regional businesses. “When we first launched the boot camp, we had the country’s first living/learning experience for students in a high-tech dormitory,” Chang said. “The boot camp was a way of kicking off the year. But over the years, the boot camp has become a preeminent event for the entire start-up community.” A detailed article on the start-up boot camp appears in the November issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

Harvard University has signed a licensing agreement with Nikon Corporation covering the use of Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (STORM) technology developed in the lab of Xiaowei Zhuang, PhD, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Under terms of the agreement, Nikon will manufacture STORM-enabled microscopy systems and market them with the N-STORM name. Optical microscopy is one of the most widely used imaging methods in biomedical research. However, the spatial resolution of optical microscopy — classically limited by the diffraction of light to several hundred nanometers — is substantially larger than typical molecular length scales in cells, leaving many biological investigations beyond the reach of light microscopy.

The STORM technology overcomes these limitations, allowing life science researchers to observe tissues and cells more clearly. STORM uses photo-switchable fluorescent probes to temporally separate the otherwise spatially overlapping images of individual molecules, allowing the construction of two- and three-dimensional, multicolor fluorescence images of molecular complexes, cells, and tissues. The STORM fluorescence microscopy allows molecular interactions in cells and cell-cell interactions in tissues to be imaged at the nanometer scale. The N-STORM Super Resolution microscope system will be available for delivery in May 2010.

Source: Nanowerk

The Rockefeller University in New York City has signed an exclusive global licensing agreement with pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-aventis to develop, manufacture, and commercialize a novel monoclonal antibody that targets certain forms of the amyloid beta (a-beta) parenchymal plaque for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Additional terms of the license were not disclosed. The anti-a-beta antibody therapy offers a promising approach to prevent and reverse the formation of amyloid plaques between nerve cells in the brain, potentially leading to cognitive improvement in patients with AD. The technology was developed in the lab of Jeffrey V. Ravetch, MD, PhD, Theresa and Eugene M. Lang professor in Rockefeller’s Leonard Wagner laboratory of molecular genetics and immunology. Ravetch discovered the original murine monoclonal antibody targeting the a-beta peptide — a target that may have a significant impact in managing patients with AD, according to Marc Cluzel, executive vice president of R&D at Sanofi-aventis. The antibody will enter development at the end of 2009.

Source: PipelineReview.com

Our distance learning division is kicking off the new year with two outstanding, practical audioconferences. On January 6, Successful Outsourcing for Tech Transfer Organizations will focus on how to implement an effective outsourcing strategy to reduce your backlog of invention files, get more deals done, and boost faculty relations. A detailed case study of Texas Tech University’s outsourcing experience will provide valuable takeaways and lessons learned. CLICK HERE for full details.

On January 27, serial inventor and innovation expert Nicholas Webb will headline “Shrink Wrap” Your University’s Technologies for Industry: Packaging Your Innovations to Minimize Corporate Risk and Extract Optimum Licensing Value. He’ll show participants how to present IP with a solid, in-depth market analysis and adopt proven analytical methods used by corporations to identify and plug any holes that could affect valuation. Attendees will gain unique insights into how to meet and exceed corporate expectations, and de-risk IP for a faster, smoother and more lucrative deal. CLICK HERE for full details.

And don’t miss next Wednesday’s distance learning session: Post-License Monitoring and Support: Performance and Revenue Enhancement Strategies (and when all else fails, how to pull the plug and take back your IP!)

Seventy percent of individuals with severe burns die from related infections, but a wound-dressing technology from Israel’s Tel Aviv University could cut that figure dramatically. Meital Zilberman, a professor in TAU’s department of biomedical engineering, has developed soluble fibers that can be used to deliver infection-fighting antibiotics and dissolve when the job is done. Now in clinical trials on animal models, Zilberman’s material may eliminate the constant wound cleaning and redressing that leads to infection, allowing the human body to complete the work on its own. The gentamicin-eluting bioresorbable structures are composed of a polyglyconate core and a porous poly(DL-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PDLGA) shell loaded with the antibiotic agent gentamicin, prepared using freeze drying of inverted emulsions. The fibers are designed to be used as basic elements of bioresorbable burn and ulcer dressings.

A study published in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research – Applied Biomaterials demonstrates that, after only two days, this dressing can eradicate infection-causing bacteria. “We’ve developed the first wound dressing that both releases antibiotic drugs and biodegrades in a controlled manner,” Zilberman says. “It solves current mechanical and physical limitations in wound-dressing techniques and gives physicians a new and more effective platform for treating burns and bedsores.” Zilberman is seeking a strategic partner to co-develop the research and take it to the commercial stage.

Source: Biomed Middle East and EurekAlert!

University of Minnesota scientists in collaboration with Celladon Corporation of La Jolla, CA, have developed technology to rapidly identify compounds for the treatment of heart failure. The technology allows for increased screening efficiency of compounds capable of disrupting the interactions of proteins implicated in the development of heart failure. Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) is used to measure disruption of the calcium regulatory system, which has long been implicated in cardiovascular disease. Because compounds that decrease FRET are good candidates for further development, researchers now will have key information early in the screening process about the likelihood that a particular drug will succeed. The high-throughput assay developed by the university research team is based on a reconstituted membrane system composed of purified lipid and protein components. The technique is important because the interactions of integral membrane proteins are more complex than soluble proteins, making it difficult to produce a synthetic system that recapitulates the cellular interactions in a large-scale and reproducible manner. U-Minn granted Celladon an exclusive license to use the technology to develop molecular therapies for cardiovascular diseases. Celladon also provided funding for the research that allowed researchers to further refine the assay.

Source: Science Daily