 "Photo: Duncan McFarlane")
The Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) has helped launch inventions that could bring relief for chronic pain sufferers and applications to Apple iPhone users.
Will Rosellini, cognition and neuroscience doctorate student, worked with the OTC to create the startup company MicroTransponder, which is developing a wireless neurostimulation solution for chronic pain sufferers.
The company relies upon the research of neuroscience professor Larry Cauller. The neural interface technology is still undergoing research and attracting investment capital.
This company is a good model for startups, said Robert Robb, associate vice president for technology commercialization.
Other inventions listed on the Web site range from a more efficient way to remove kidney stones, StoneMag, to a mobile media application for the Apple iPhone, place things.
"Primarily there is faculty involved, but it's not at all unusual for there to be graduate students involved too. Sometimes we do have some inventions that are disclosed only by the graduate students," said Becky Stoughton, assistant director of technology commercialization.
Sankalp Modi, electrical engineering doctorate student, worked without faculty assistance to submit two invention disclosure forms related to signal processing research. One invention could decrease the amount of power cell phones require to operate.
Duncan MacFarlane, electrical engineering professor, and Chester Wildey, electrical engineering graduate student, plan to found a company from their research on fMRI headtracking. The invention tracks motion during MRI scans to re-align data in real time to give a more accurate picture.
"Our goal is to be the motion-tracking solution of choice in the research arena within the next three years," MacFarlane said.
MacFarlane began basic research in the late 1990s and returned to it after recognizing his work's applicability to the problem of motion during MRIs.
"We expect the apparatus to be used in clinical brain research early this year," Wildey said.
The OTC is a resource for UTD inventors and start-up ventures. Before the OTC was created, research resources were more limited, Robb said.
The office was created in April 2008 and has since been restructured and expanded. The OTC Web site, finalized in December, streamlines the process of submitting forms and makes more information available.
The office itself has been fully functional since September and has been busy with a backlog of inventions, Robb said.
"If the invention disclosure rate continues at the current pace, we will receive about one invention (disclosure) per week," Robb said.
So far, in 2009, the OTC has received 17 invention disclosures, Stoughton said.
Faculty and students sign an agreement that intellectual property developed at UTD belongs to the university when they fill out an invention disclosure form and submit it to the OTC to be processed.
"A key component of what we do is evaluating the potential of inventions," Stoughton said, "The researchers know the technology inside and out, but they don't always have the insight into the marketplace and competition."
The OTC works closely with the Office of Sponsored Research and the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE.)
The IIE helps analyze market potential and business planning for a particular invention, and the Office of Sponsored Research provides technical assistance, scopes out funding opportunities and negotiates contracts.
The OTC will help achieve part of the university's 10 year plan by attracting new faculty research funding, Stoughton said.
The ailing economy has had little effect on the OTC, Robb said.
"The research engine will go forward whether there is a good or bad economy. Invention will prevail," Robb said.
If the OTC determines that an invention holds commercialization potential, then a file patent application is submitted, or a license to an established company or startup company is created.
"We've had an increased interest in licensing," Stoughton said, "We probably will continue to get more interest from industry as we go forward."
A goal of the OTC is to serve as a virtual incubator for the development of the inventions, Robb said.
"This is an initiative picking up steam, and it's an issue the Governor of the state and (UTD) president (David Daniel) support," Robb said.
The OTC is currently working on listing technologies available for licensing on the website.
The OTC's new website is www.utdallas.edu/otc.
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