From the Editor: Ultimate Networking at BioInterface 2009

In my last editorial I wrote about the upcoming October BioInterface meeting, and in particular about my upcoming session on Academic and Industrial Partnerships. The overall intent of this session was two fold: The first was to provide information on how to engender and prepare for Partnerships such as those between Academia and Industry, and the second was to enable academic and industrial partnerships as well as similar relationships between large and small firms, or with consultants. The reason for such is that our discipline, however we define it, is a complex one. We need teams to conceive, hypothesize, develop, engineer, test, evaluate, manufacture, get approvals, and more, in order to get new and better medical devices to physicians and their patients.

Despite the Academic and Industrial Partnership Session being the last one at BioInterface 2009, and then despite a delayed start due to very extensive Q&A in the prior days’ sessions, attendance at this ultimate session was still quite respectable. Thanks to all for staying to the sweet end. For those of you who did not remain, or were unable to attend any of BioInterface 2009, please read on.

The Ultimate Session began with two invited presentations. The first addressed patents and the management of patent portfolios (presented by Colin Farman, JD, PhD of Fulbright and Jaworski, LLP, Minneapolis). This was followed by the second invited presentation on the role of academic technology transfer offices (presented by Jeanine Burmania, MS, of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation). Both presentations were excellent, and like most of the BioInterface 2009 presentations, these are available at www.surfaces.org. This will be especially beneficial for those who were unable to stay to the end of the meeting. (Note that this is only available to those who registered for the meeting.)

The second half of the session is where the “Ultimate Networking” experiment began. When the ultimate networking session was conceived, I had hoped it would provide the opportunity for attendees to accelerate their networking by letting everyone know what they had to offer, be it an academic technology for licensing, novel materials, specialized consulting or analysis capabilities, or the potential to be some company’s next star employee.

As a recap of this session, I announced at the opening of BioInterface 2009 that any registered attendee could make a 5 minute/5 PowerPoint slide “Pitch.” As stated in the Meeting Program:

Any registered attendees may present, “I am seeking partners…” or a similar message at the final session of BioInterface 2009 on Wednesday October 28 at 3:30 PM. Presenters will be allotted a maximum of 5 minutes, including any questions. Submissions will be accepted on a first-come, first-served, time-available basis, at the discretion of the session chair. To enable last minute discussions, submissions may be received up until 3 PM on the day of the session.

At the close of the meeting, I was very pleased to judge this concept was a success. There were six “seeking partners” presentations, plus there were several more that could not be accommodated due to time constraints. (My apologies to those that we couldn’t fit.) The presenters and their titles were:

1. Jeanine Burmania of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation was seeking commercialization partners for licensing of patents that included: Wound Healing Using Patterned Gradients of Immobilized Bimolecular; Bioactive and Biocompatible Implantable Copolymers; Protein-Based, PEG-Modified, Multi-Functional Hydrogels; Orthopedic Implant Coating for Enhanced Bone Growth; Biologically Active Sutures for Regenerative Medicine.
   
2. Trevor Johnson of Flagship Biosciences was seeking to provide Histology and Digital Histology Pathology Evaluation and Archival Services.
   
3. Jun Yang of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor was seeking employment opportunities following her degree completion, with expertise in Nitric Oxide Generating Anti-thrombotic Surface via Layer-by-Layer Assembly.
   
4. Norman Munroe of the Applied Research Center at Florida International University was seeking to provide Corrosion and Biocompatibility Assessment services that included: In-vitro corrosion testing in accordance with ASTM standards; SEM/EDS, TEM, AFM, XRD, Raman Spectroscopy, XPS, ICPMS; Osseointegration and Endothelialization of Alloys; and Cytotoxicity Assessments.
   
5. Howard Killilea of Valspar, a very large coatings company, was seeking to assist firms with their broad technology platforms that include coatings that are widely used in Food and Pharmaceutical applications.
   
6. Steven Goodman of 10H Technology and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (and this Editor) was seeking to assist industrial partners with analytical and microscopic characterization for R&D, QA/QC, and for Regulatory purposes; and to provide services related to the evaluation and development of new technologies and business opportunities.

One measure of success was that there were six seeking partners presentations, with four of these provided by BioInterface attendees at the meeting, and more that could not be accommodated. A second measure was that the audience stuck around. But, by far the greatest measure of success was that several of the presenters were contacted for follow-up detailed discussions that may lead to exactly the type of partnerships this session was created to engender.

I hope this opportunity was interesting and possibly beneficial to you all. This was an experiment, and I believe it was successful. But, as always, I would appreciate hearing from my readers. Was this of benefit to you? Shall we repeat this in future meetings, such as a next year’s meeting in Atlanta? Drop me a line.

By Steven L. Goodman, Ph.D., 10H Technology Corporation

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