Three examples of UIR-funded projects

Here are three examples of more than 200 projects funded by UIR grants that illustrate the leveraging of state money and the entrepreneurship of the university’s research community.

See also: UIR grant programs fuel technology transfer

Creating ceramic membranes
“The seed support provided by UIR was instrumental in allowing my laboratory to receive a $500,000 grant from the Department of Energy (DOE),” says Marc Anderson, professor of civil and environmental engineering. “The DOE funds were the first federal monies granted to an academic researcher for the exploration of the basic properties of ceramic membranes.” Anderson’s ceramic research has yielded 24 patents held by WARF, some of which have been licensed to companies that build room-sized air purifiers for homes and offices and equipment to keep fruits and vegetables fresh in supermarket bins.

Finding drugs in dirt
UIR funding helped bring a research project headed by plant pathologists Jo Handelsman and Robert Goodman to the patent stage. The researchers are testing DNA from soil bacteria for useful drug activity; WARF holds one patent on the technology. The project, also involving Cornell University chemist Jon Clardy, attracted a $1 million grant from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation. Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, Mass. has given a $429,000 award to support the work.

Pulping wood without harm
Masood Akhtar, former scientist at the UW Biotechnology Center, says a key biopulping invention, inoculating wood chips with a fungus and corn steep liquor, was made possible by TIF funding. “Frankly, the entire project would have ended without this support to provide the additional research needed to gain industrial interest for bio-pulping,” Akhtar says. The technology saves electrical energy and improves paper quality. Akhtar founded the spinoff company, Biopulping International Inc., to commercialize the biopulping technology, and 22 pulp and paper companies support the work.