Spotting talent has become a popular pastime with television shows like American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and Britain’s Got Talent. Sporting scouts have long competed to find the next quarterback or goalie sensation and race tracks swell with people trying to predict winners. And science, too, has talent scouts.

“We’re a very active technology transfer office. In fact, we’ve been known to work the halls, knocking on doors, because we don’t want to miss a promising technology. We feel a duty, a responsibility, to look at every emerging discovery. We can’t live with the notion that someone will say, ‘Gee, I should have patented that,’ ” Garold Breit, executive director of the University’s Technology Transfer Office, said.

TTO is the University of Manitoba’s equivalent of a talent scout. They find a budding technology, wrap it in competent patent protection, set up research collaborations to advance the idea, and then woo industry partners in hopes of bringing about commercialization. Since 2006, TTO has hosted representatives from 64 European and North American companies and managed 200 new invention disclosures, making it one of Canada’s most successful intellectual asset programs—ahead of schools like Queen’s University and the University of Toronto.

“One of the big things we do is we identify potential early on,” Dr. Odd Bres, a TTO technology manager, said. “We pick up new technologies from a very early stage because we know how many steps it takes, and we try to understand the larger implications of the work, what sort of things it can apply to.”

Since 2005, TTO has invested $1.2 million worth of Intellectual Property Mobilization (IPM) grants to nurture ideas brimming with potential. Recently they gave $30,000 in IPM money to chemistry’s Frank Schweizer and medical microbiology’s George Zhanel; they are developing a new class of antimicrobial drugs.

With this money, Schweizer retrofitted aminoglycosides (a sugar-based antibiotic that’s been around since 1944) with peptides using a tricky process called click chemistry. Zhanel then tested these drugs in in vitro tests against the most virulent superbugs he received from North American hospitals. The results were hopeful and they applied for, and received, the highly competitive Proof-of-Principle grant awarded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

“Odd was the link we needed,” Zhanel said. “He wrote an entire section of the grant that asked about how we planned on commercializing our idea. It was not something a researcher could write.”

With this $150,000 grant they will run in vivo tests using the most active and least toxic molecules. If the results show promise, drug companies will surely notice.

“The idea is so early no one will buy into it,” Breit said. “But we give it some money and some expertise and some legal protection, and it starts looking like a race car. And then we move it on down and all of a sudden we have a Ferrari driving down the road in terms of technology.”

Schweizer said, “as a young professor all I cared about was publishing articles, but now, after dealing with the TTO, I am much more cautious about my research’s implications and now I’ll take things to Odd and see if he thinks I should file a provisional patent. I can do the science part, but once it comes to claims, the TTO makes sure everything is perfect and that no idea went overlooked in terms of protecting it, because you never know what small thing could turn out to be a big thing down the road.”

By Sean Moore, re-printed with permisson from ResearchLIFE

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Connect USA/Canada Economic Summit is about:

1. New ways and techniques to build and access your networks through readily available new and emerging technologies
2. Expanding your network range by developing stronger North/South ties
3. Better understanding our region and its asset and opportunity base
4. Meeting people that can make a difference

Connect USA Canada Economic Summit builds on and leverages trade, business and research relationships and opportunities between Manitoba, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. Inspired, pragmatic and relevant, Connect 2009 will prove to be rich in content by focusing on ways to build and improve on existing collaborations and explore future opportunities and initiatives.

The summit ultimately revolves around building relationships as a means to further our individual and collective goals.  Keynote speaker, Scott Goodstein, CEO of Revolution Messaging, has taken networking and relationship building to the next level.  He was responsible for President Obama’s social networking portion of the presidential campaign that captured the imagination, passion and active participation of millions of previously uninvolved American electorate.   Scott redefined, positioned and elevated the utility of social networking as a pragmatic and effective tool enabling people from across the US to truly “connect” and feel empowered.  He has been asked to address how we can apply these new principles of engagement to better link us with each other, our clients and collectively within our bi-national region. 

Inspired, pragmatic and relevant, Connect USA Canada Economic Summit will prove to be rich in content by focusing on ways to build and improve on existing collaborations as well as exploring future opportunities and initiatives.  

Scott Goodstein, CEO of Revolution Messaging, a firm that specializes in social networking and mobile messaging, developed the Obama campaign's social networking platforms.

For more information about Scott Goodstein and his Revolution Messaging project click here

For more information or to register for the Connect USA/Canada Economic Summit click here

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PORTRAIT OF AN ENTREPRENEUR:
40-YEAR-OLD FAMILY MAN ASSOCIATED PRESS July 19, 2009

What does an entrepreneur look like?

A recent survey by the Kauffman Foundation, a pro-entrepreneur group, found that company founders, mostly in the technology sector, tended to be married, middle-class and middle-aged
.
Family: Nearly 70 percent said they were married when they started the business. About 60 percent had at least one child. In the case of their own birth order, the biggest group, 42.5 percent, said they were the first-born.

Education: They overwhelmingly (95 percent) are college graduates. There was an even split between those who held only bachelor's degrees and those with more advanced degrees.

Background: The survey said that 71.5 percent called their parents “middle-class.” That ranged from professional parents with postgraduate degrees to white-collar workers with associate's degrees. It found 82.5 percent were born in the U.S., with the next biggest country of origin being India, at 3.8 percent.

Work experience: About a quarter had zero to five years of work experience under their belts before launching or joining a start-up, while 27.6 percent had worked six to 10 years and 23.3 percent 11 to 15 years. The average age of company founders was 40.

The survey was heavily skewed to the technology sector.

The report's authors wanted to survey those industries they considered “higher growth,” such as aerospace, computer software and hardware, biotechnology and engineering consultants.

Those termed “founders” were those who joined their company in its first year.

For more information about the Kauffman Foundation click here

Hot Technology: Total synthesis of isoprekinamycin and novel related anticancer diazobenzo[a]fluorenes

Novel University of Manitoba anti-cancer drug enters pre-clinical testing and development.

Cancer is anticipated to overtake death due to cardiac diseases in the US by 2010. Approximately 1 million people are diagnosed with this disease every year. Chemotherapy is an effective treatment in addition to surgery and radiation therapy. The cancer therapeutics market is a 50 billion dollar market expected to reach $71 billion by 2014. With patents on key chemotherapeutic drugs expiring in the next few years, there is a need to replenish cytotoxic cancer therapy market pipelines with new drug classes. Novel chemotherapies are also being sought to circumvent the onset of drug resistance.

The kinamycins are a class of highly cytotoxic molecules derived from a natural source. Known since the 1970s, their structure has only recently been elucidated. They work by a mode of action different from known chemotherapeutic drugs and may help circumvent the occurrence of drug resistance.

Canada Research Chair in Drug Development and Professor of Pharmacy at the University of Manitoba, Dr. Brian Hasinoff and University of Waterloo Professor Dr. Gary Dmitrienko (Chemistry) have developed analogs of kinamycins using novel methods, which have demonstrated high anticancer efficacy. These derivatives of kinamycins have a unique diazobenzo[a]fluorene structure, which enhances their predicted effectiveness.

Development of this patent protected technology is being viewed as a positive step forward in filling the pipeline of chemotherapeutic agents required to treat the growing number of cancer patients.

For more information regarding this opportunity contact Dr. Raja B. Singh at 204.474.8966 or raja_singh@umanitoba.ca

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Upcoming Events

CONNECT USA/CANADA ECONOMIC SUMMIT
Winnipeg, MB
September 14 – 15, 2009

FEDERAL INNOVATION WORKSHOP
Fort Garry Campus
Sept 16, 2009

NATIONAL BIOTECHNOLOGY WEEK
September 18 - 25, 2009

EUROBIO 2009
Lille, France
Sept 23-25, 2009

BANFF VENTURE FORUM 2009
Banff, AB
October 1 -2, 2009

BIOPARTNERING EUROPE
London, UK
October 11 – 14, 2009

REGINA TECHNOLOGY FAIR
Regina, SK,
October 15, 2009

UNDERGRADUATE POSTER COMPETITION
Fort Garry Campus
October 21, 2009

LES 2009 ANNUAL MEETING
San Francisco, CA,
October 18 - 22, 2009

AUSBIOTECH 2009
Melbourne, Australia
October 27,2009

4TH ANNUAL PICKEREL & PATENTS
Bannatyne Campus,
November 5, 2009

ACCT CANADA ANNUAL MEETING
Victoria, BC
November 8 – 10, 2009

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