(331d) Academic Research and Technology Commercialization: An Unexpected Path

Many academic researchers today to invent and develop novel technologies that are ultimately commercialized and have impact on real life applications. There are many challenges for an academic invention to become a commercial product. Entrepreneurial efforts are increasingly appreciated by universities as well as the scientific community, but a combination of factors is necessary for success: Designing the technology with scalability in mind, directing research towards demonstrating reliability and applicability, institutional support, forming a team that brings together many necessary skills beyond research, extensive networking, learning many new things, and a good amount of luck. In this presentation, I will share my somewhat unconventional path that passed through one unexpected start-up experience, landed me in an academic career, and ultimately paved the path to the commercialization of some technologies we developed by a start-up, ZwitterCo. I will discuss some conscious efforts we made to enable this, but also aspects of fortuitous events that brought an excellent team together that took on this challenge, thoughts about challenges of being an academic trying to bring research they believe in to the market, and my experience with finding my own place in this complex ecosystem.