Today more research is being conducted collaboratively between industry and academia, but it’s not always easy.  LA2011 will present a Wednesday morning lively panel discussion on "Leveraging the Academic Industry Interface for Education and Research"  with hands-on viewpoints from academic leaders, academics turned entrepreneurs, industry executives, industrialists serving on academic Boards and finally graduate students. 

The Panel will be led by Dr. Jim Sterling, VP of Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty at Keck Graduate Institute (KGI).  His panel will include Dr. Rich Mathies, Dean of the Colleage of Chemistry at the University of Calfornia, Berkeley; Dr. Dennis Fenton, former Executive V.P. at Amgen Inc. and currently a member of the Board of Trustees at Rutgers Universtity and KGI; Dr. Mark Feiglin, Chief Technology Officer of Life Sciences at Tecan and former researcher at Merck; and Adam Calvert, a Masters of Bioscience student at KGI involved in an industry-academic project. 

Each panel member brings a unique perspective.  Rich Mathies is the director of the Center for Bioanalyatical Technology at UC Berkeley and has a long record (over 370 publications) of research in protein structure and reaction dynamics, the human genome and high-throughput DNA analyses, but his contribution on this panel will be primarily related to his experience in spinning out technology resulting from academic research.  He understands the IP ownership issues involved in commercializing academic-developed technology.   

Dennis Fenton brings the viewpoint of both a former industry executive, current industry Board member and also that of a Regent of academic institutions.  What does Board-level managment of both universities and industry expect to get out of industry - academic collaborations?  What are the conflict of interest concerns?  Does this differ among large or small companies and/or universities? 

Mark Feiglin brings the expereince of currently managing technology collaborations between Tecan and academic groups.  What are the technical goals of such an interaction?  How does the industry and academic timescale mesh? 

Adam Calvert will help us understand the educational goals that a graduate student has in such a collaboration.  We shouldn't forget that ultimately the goal of academic institutions is to educate (at least we hope so), so how should industry - academic interactions be structured to include educational goals? 

This should be an interesting discussion from people who actually are "in the trenches" of academic - industry relationships!  Plan to attend Wednesday morning at LabAutomation2011 in Palm Springs.  See the SLAS website for program details.

Until Next TIme,

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto