Institute juxtaposes science and industry

Researchers often joke about the rivalry between the public and
private sectors in the sciences. Like competitive sports teams,
they often rush to be the first to get valuable patents and
inventions before others.

That is what makes the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA,
where public researchers from the UC and scientists from private
corporations work together, something of an anomaly.

At the CNSI groundbreaking ceremony this past February, Gov.
Gray Davis called the institute “a genuine partnership
between the public and private sectors.”

With nearly 30 partnership alliances, the CNSI will be affected
by corporate research interests ““ and corporate dollars.

At the groundbreaking ceremony, officials announced that the
private sector contributed $138 million to the project, following a
$100 million contribution from the state.

Many of these companies, attracted by the top researchers in
nanotechnology at UCLA, will fund research that would help solve
their own development problems as well.

With so much invested into nanotechnology, everyone expects to
see profits.

“The companies are making an investment, they are not just
giving money to UCLA,” said Erick Burchfield, who works in
business development at UCLA. “They are looking for some
output that can be commercialized.”

The burgeoning field of nanotechnology, which focuses on
particles 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, has
sparked international interest in both public governments and
private corporations.

If nanotechnology and nanoscience live up to the hype, it would
have immense technological implications for the environment,
information technology, the aerospace industry, biology, defense
mechanisms and the arts.

In today’s society, these intellectual endeavors usually
translate into valuable profits.

While the state hopes the institute will create new jobs and
push California’s staggering economy forward, researchers are
looking for valuable profits from patents and inventions.

With most of the companies based in California, they also have
an added interest in seeing California be the hotbed of
nanotechnology, Burchfield said.

As everyone looks for a share in the intellectual profits that
the research will yield, certain preventative measures have to be
taken.

In order to safeguard against losses or conflicts of interest
that might arise from the close collaboration of the university
with the corporations, the whole process of working with
corporations is overseen by the university administration ““
which includes the UCLA Office of Intellectual Property.

This office determines the patentability of new products and
receives and distributes any royalties and other income to the
inventors, the UCLA campus and departments.

In addition, each corporation involved enters a specific
research agreement with the CNSI.

These agreements stipulate what collaborative research UCLA has
with the companies in addition to breaking down subsequent rights,
like patent rights, that would result from the research. At times
these rights could go exclusively to the corporations.

Several corporations involved with the CNSI could not be reached
for comment.

The corporate researchers are meant to work closely with the
scientists from UCLA.

When the new CNSI building is completed, it will have special
“incubator” labs or open labs that can be used for
researchers from the public and private sectors, in addition to
researchers from different scientific disciplines.

In this sense, industry is literally working side by side with
UCLA.

“Our expectation and objective of CNSI is to take down
some of the divisions between the academic world and the world of
industry and the marketplace,” Burchfield said.