Isakowitz T.
University of Pennsylvania, US
Keywords: industry/academia collaboration
The difficulty in establishing academia/industry research collaborations focused on nanotechnology stems mostly from a difference in perspectives. While most academic work focuses on science, industry’s emphasis is on applications. For example, a scientist may be interested in small protein-design, but a company in drugs for cancer. The bridge between the two is technology. If small-protein design is geared toward developing new targeted drug delivery techniques (the technology), and if that particular technology can be used for cancer drugs, then we have a potential match. We developed a technique to facilitate this kind of analysis on a large scale. Research projects are cataloged according to two axes: science and technology. For example, a project on Vascular grafts is cataloged as science colloids, design/synthesis of nanoparticles, and of polymers technology Medical Devices, coatings and new materials Once a large number of projects is thus cataloged a matrix relating science and technology is obtained. The matrix entries represent the number of projects associating a science and a technology. A similar matrix can be constructed for a company. The multiplication of both matrices results in a science/application matrix that highlights potential areas for collaboration.
Journal: TechConnect Briefs
Volume: 1, Technical Proceedings of the 2007 NSTI Nanotechnology Conference and Trade Show, Volume 1
Published: May 20, 2007
Pages: 605 - 607
Industry sector: Advanced Materials & Manufacturing
Topic: Advanced Manufacturing
ISBN: 1-4200-6182-8