A new breakthrough from Prof. Sylvain Martel, at Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal.
Vector Newsletter May 2010
The May 2010 edition of the Vector Newsletter has been published this week.
In this edition:
- Zero Rejection: A test that could eliminate the principal complication that occurs following hematopoietic cell transplantation.
- the WOW FACTOR! Univalor and the School of Industrial Design collaborate to stimulate indus try interest.
- Light Show: Biological tests potentially 100 times more sensitive thanks to a breakthrough in optics.
- The 3rd Crossroad for BioTransfer
Enjoy!
MR-SUB advertised in the streets of Montreal
While walking in the old Montreal yesterday night, I was surprised to see one of the projects of my portfolio, MR-SUB, advertised in the streets.
For its first campain of MONTREAL F1RST, MR-SUB has been chosen by the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal as one of the most innovative projects in the province of Québec.
English translation: “First Metropolis, to send a micro-device through the blood vessels”
More about MR-SUB:
Because of the high number of patients diagnosed with cancer, tumor targeting, target chemotherapy and chemoembolization are of special interest for modern medicine. Nevertheless, many tumors are still out of reach to catheterization (in particular the ones that must be targeted in regions only accessible through smaller diameter vessels). Some 40 years after the release of the “Fantastic Voyage”, Professor Sylvain Martel, from École Polytechnique de Montréal, came up with the solution: he developed a MRI based platform which enables to reach targets usually inaccessible to catheterization. Its applications include cells targeting, chemoembolization and local hyperthermia.
My Best Friends
How and Where do I promote my technologies portfolio?
I was last Monday at a cocktail reception organized by Croissance Québec Techno where I attended a great presentation from Bill K. Aulet, the Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center.
Bill’s talk was about entrepreneurial marketing (you can download his slideshow here). I’ve particularly liked it. His main advice to the entrepreneurs in the room was to focus on customers: “Every day,we should talk to new clients, get their feedbacks and understand their needs”. In this global world, Bill suggests to use social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc… (“The entrepreneur best friends“)
This is obviously also true in technology transfer. There are thousands of great and unknown technologies in universities and one of our main challenges, as technology transfer officers, is to reach our audience. This can very complicated since, in some cases, we’re working on (very) early technologies or even sometimes on “solutions looking for problems” (I’ve some examples of those, if you’re interested…). We then have to find visionary individuals who believe in the projects and who see what people usual don’t.
I’ve already been working in technology transfer for Univalor for 5 years now. During this time, I had the chance to talk to people from almost all the continents from Canada to South Africa, Australia, almost of the countries of Europe, China or Japan. Our audience is then everywhere and in all kinds of companies. Using the social networking sites in technology transfer is then a must!
Therefore, if you’re either seeking to extend the competitiveness of your company or looking for your next venture, here is the list of my best friends (click on the logos to go on my profiles):
You can also search in my portfolio or read our quaterly newsletter on Univalor’s wesbite:
Or discover, Univalor’s technologies on Flintbox:
March 2010 edition of the Vector
Hello,
The March 2010 edition of the Vector, Univalor’s quaterly newsletter is now online.
Featured in the edition:
- Heart test: a diagnostic test for acute coronary syndrome
- A perfect image: a new method improves magnetic resonance images
- Deficiency gene: an important gene for non-syndromic mental
retardation has been identified.
- Complete Security: a quantum network with complete confidentiality
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or feedbacks on these projects
TechConnect Summit 2010
It has been a long way since I have written post here. This year again, I will be attending the TechConnect Summit in June and I recommend everyone to participate.
The TechConnect Summit will take place June 22-25, 2010, in Anaheim, CA, US. TechConnect is the largest conference in the US focused on emerging technology commercialization and business for nanotechnology, cleantechnology, and the life sciences.
The TechConnect program platform focuses on technology matchmaking
between F1000 corporations and leading universities from around the
world.
TechConnect has great support of the F500 corporate community as both speakers and advisors. Confirmed presenters for the 2010 Summit
include business and technology development executives from: Applied Materials, BP, Fuji Electric, GE Healthcare, Kodak, Lockheed Martin, Medtronic, Merck, Panasonic, Procter & Gamble, Omron, Sanyo, and Toray.
There are several ways to participate:
Present a Technology (IP), Submissions Due February 12
Present a Venture, Submissions Due February 12
Attend, Online Registration Now Open:
Please visit the TechConnect Summit 2010 home page for more details, or contact
Jennifer Rocha at jrocha@techconnect.org.
Allostera, a Univalor’s Spin-off, closes a $17M financing
Repost from www.univalor.ca
Allostera Pharma inc. closed $17M (CAD) Series A financing.
Allostera Pharma Inc. announced yesterday that “it has secured a Series A financing of $17 million.
Four venture funds participated: iNovia Capital, Genesys Capital, BDC Venture Capital with GO Capital, and Fonds Bio-Innovation s.e.c. The proceeds of the financing will be used for the development of Allosteramers™, a new class of drugs developed by Allostera scientists that are both highly specific for their targets and designed to be orally bioavailable. Additionally with these proceeds, Allostera plans to complete preclinical studies and begin human clinical testing of its lead Allosteramer™, APG2305, a novel drug candidate for treating autoimmune diseases like psoriasis that has demonstrated oral activity in animals. The specific terms of the Series A preferred share financing were not disclosed.”
To read the press release, please click here.
Congrats to Anne-Marie, Hélène and Marc for this great job!
Vector June 2009
Hello,
Univalor has just released the June 2009 edition of its Vector Newsletter.
 |
Projects presented this month:
- An alternative vaccine for preventing Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome
- A system improves the study of nerve growth
- License to Research: Granting a license amplifies Dr. Céline Bareil’s research capacity.
To download and read this edition: click here
How Technology Transfer contributes to create a better world?
Repost from www.univalor.ca
The AUTM Better World Report illustrates the real impact of technology transfer.
In its last edition, a technology recently licensed by Univalor to the South Korean company, Dongil Rubber Belt Co. Ltd. is presented:
“Brace Buffers Buildings to Protect People and Profits” (on page 75).
Optical Fibers are now Wearable!
One of the cool projects that I presented last week at TechConnect Summit (which by the way was a great success. Congrats to Jennifer for the organization!), is a wearable photonic colored fibers developed by Pr. Maksim Skorobagatiy at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal.
Smart textiles are now everywhere (Frost and Sullivan estimates that in 2020, 80% of the textile will be smart!). Applications already include interactive clothing for sports, hazardous occupations, and military, industrial textiles with integrated sensors or signage, fashion accessories and apparel with unique and variable appearance, etc…
Mainly because of their commercial availability but also their low cost, photonics textile manufacturers usually use silica glass-based telecommunication fibers which cause several challenges in the textile world (How to extract the color from the fiber core? How to generate the color? How to weave them? etc…).
Here comes Pr. Skorobogatiy’s invention!
Instead of using glass-based fibers, he proposes to use photonics crystal fibers made of different layers of polymers which will act as a spectral filter. Therefore, from a single white light source, only a given color will be leaked out of the fiber.
No more need to paint the fiber or to use 3 RGB LED, the color is defined by the fiber design itself (geometry, polymers used, etc…)!
Finally, one of the cool properties of Maksim’s fibers is their ability to change color by mixing the reflected ambient light with the irradiated guided light (inside the fiber).
Under the daylight illumination, and in the absence of guided light, in the fiber is still colored. Consequently, when both the ambient illumination and guided light are present, the overall color of the fiber will be determined by mixing of the two colors in the radiation far field (ex : green + red = yellow).
Applications of this new invention include the development of variable colored uniforms or signs. It could also be used as an anti‐counterfeit label or an intelligent jewelry.
Check out the prototypes’ pictures on Pr. Skorobogatiy’s website. They’re amazing!
As usual, I welcome your comments and feedbacks! Any other idea of applications?
Thomas
