Good Business
 |
A reduction in Government funding to the tertiary sector has made raising revenue from sources - such as the Commercialisation of Research - increasingly important to the University.
The number of UQ research projects now being guided from laboratory to commercial realisation is increasing annually.
The research spans everything from mining initiatives that are literally groundbreaking, to human and animal biology, drug design, and breakthroughs in agriculture.
Responsibility for research commercialisation is the domain of UQ's main commercialisation company UniQuest; IMBcom, working with the University's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB); and JKTech, linked with the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre.
The latest available figures (2003) show UniQuest has helped its start-up companies secure a record $20.1 million in equity funding and $6 million in grants, with a significant part of the $26 million flowing to the University.
The direct financial benefit from UniQuest's commercialisation activities in 2003 amounted to $13.3 million in payments and provisions for payments from research contracts, consulting and commercialisation activities.
UniQuest also made a $500,000 donation to the University.
With UniQuest celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the tangible benefits of UQ's "experiment" in commercialisation have been more than demonstrated, UniQuest Managing Director David Henderson said.
IMBcom, which entered its fifth year of incorporation in 2004, is the value-adding innovation carrier for IMB researchers, protecting discoveries, building alliances with organisations to promote them, and drawing up partnerships with investors to help grow new enterprises.
Commercialisation activities extended from providing expert commercial education to IMB PhD students, sourcing and negotiating contracts with several external companies for collaborative research in the IMB's laboratories, managing the disclosure and protection of the IMB's Intellectual Property, and out-licensing technologies and spinning-out new start-up companies.
Nephrogenix is one such company spun out from IMBcom and Monash Commercial in 2002 to develop and exploit novel methodologies, cellular therapies, and therapeutics for kidney disease developed by the Renal Regeneration Consortium (RRC).
Until January 2004, Nephrogenix was a virtual company, accumulating intellectual property developed by the RRC, when its first agreement with a major pharmaceutical company was signed, providing funding for a negotiated research and development project.
In March 2004, the company was awarded an Innovation Start-Up Scheme grant by the Queensland Government allowing a part-time Executive Officer to be appointed. In a bid to offer relief to patients affected by kidney, blood and heart disease, Nephrogenix has signed a collaborative research agreement with Australia's National Stem Cell Centre (NSCC).
In the past 12 months, IMBcom analysed several invention disclosures from the IMB, and expanded its IP portfolio through the filing of five provisional patent applications for a diverse array of new technologies including algal hydrogen production for clean energy, novel stem-cell markers, and new anti-cancer compounds.
JKTech has also been active, with particular success in helping bring to fruition a system developed by the JKMRC to track and monitor the location of ore and waste material during blasting operations.
The JKMRC responded to the mining industry's need for a system which replaced existing methods used by the mining industry to monitor muck pile movement (the broken fragments of rock resulting from blasting). These included using sand bags, poly pipe and chains as displacement markers.
JKMRC senior researcher Darren Thornton and colleagues Michael Wortley, Graham Sheridan and David La Rosa came up with the Blast Movement Monitor (BMM), a plastic ball-shaped transmitter placed in holes within a blast area.
Up to 15 transmitters are used in each blast. After each blast sequence, the BMMs are located within the muck pile using a detector, and three-dimensional vectors for each transmitter movement are available within two hours.
Mr Thornton said the key to the success of the prototype device was the ability of small transmitters to send signals through at least 10 metres of rock after surviving a production blast. He said BMMs were particularly useful in selective operations, such as narrow vein gold-mining.
"BMMs are an obvious choice over current movement monitoring methods as they give the excavation team the required results before they start digging," Mr Thornton said.
More Information:
Institute for Molecular Bioscience
http://www.imbcom.com.au
UniQuest
http://www.uniquest.com.au
JKTech
http://www.jktech.com.au
