Marine Science Workshop: Program

2nd UTEN Workshop 2010 - Marine and Bio-Sciences
Research Collaboration & Network Building for Commercialization
Universidade do Algarve-CCMAR - 27-28 September, 2010
Program | Speakers | Reading Materials | Photos

September 27 - Monday - Day 1:
Research Collaboration & Network Building for Commercialization – Examples in Marine and Bio-Sciences

9:00 – Workshop Registration

9:30 – Opening
Rector of the University of Algarve: João Guerreiro
Workshop Chairman: Professor Adelino Canário, Head CCMAR
Workshop Co-Chair: Professor João Tasso, UPorto
UTEN Directors: José Mendonça, INESC-Porto and David Gibson, UT-Austin

9:45 – Trends in Marine and Bio-Sciences: challenges from industry and how universities and research institutes are meeting those needs

Frank Pezold, Dean, College of Science and Technology - Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi
The Strategy and Economic Impact of Building a World Class Marine Science Institution

Adelino Canário – Director of Centre of Marine Sciences (CCMAR), Algarve University
Networking and commercialization in marine biotechnology: How the market has and can profit from Marine Genomics

João Tasso F. Borges de Sousa, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Porto University
The Importance of Networks and Understanding End-Users: A Commercialization Perspective on Marine Science Systems, Technologies and R&D

10:30 Round table discussion (also with the Rector of University of Algarve)

11:00 Coffee break

11.30 Trends in Marine and Bio-Sciences: challenges from industry and how universities and research institutes are meeting those needs

Joan Holt, Associate Director, UT-Marine Science Institute,
Marine Aquaculture in the United States: Current and Future Challenges to Commercialization

Maria de Lurdes Cristiano, CCMAR, Algarve University
Applications of anti-malarial endoperoxide drugs in aquaculture

Sérgio Jesus, Vice-Rector for Research, CCMAR, Algarve University
Underwater acoustics: applications and commercialization opportunities

12:30 Round table discussion (also with Jorge Gonçalves, Vice-Rector of University of Porto)

13: 00 – Lunch

14:30 Building Strategic Relationships between Industry and Universities - Rationale for research collaboration: how universities and research institutes work with industry to create value for both themselves and their industrial partners (spin-offs, in particular)

Helena Santos, ITQB - Universidade Nova Lisboa
Patenting and commercializing microorganisms from marine, hot environments as sources of new protein stabilizers

Alfredo Damasceno-Oliveira, Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CIMAR-Associate Laboratory) - University of Porto
Collaborative research on hyperbaric equipment for the study of aquatic organisms

Sabine Krieg, Business Development, IGB, Fraunhofer
The promise of algae as a source of transport fuel and the bumps-in-the-road of research consortia and commercialization of end-results

15:30 Round table discussion (also with João Coimbra, Director of CIMAR, ICBAS/University of Porto)

16:00 Coffee break

16:30 Uncovering New Marine Commercialization and Partnership Opportunities

Manuel Pinto de Abreu – director of EMEPC: Task Group for the Extension of the Portuguese Continental Shelf
Research and commercialization opportunities of the extension of the Continental Shelf

Gary Jeffress, Professor Geographic Information Science Coordinator and Director of the Conrad Blucher Institute, Texas A&M Corpus Christi
The Financial Value of Marine Observation Networks for Governments and Industry

António Pascoal, ISR - Instituto Superior Técnico

17:30 Round table discussion (also with Paulo Mónica de Oliveira - Director of Centro de Investigação Naval)

18:00 Wrap-up - 1st day
David Gibson, UT Austin, Associate Director of IC2

19:30 Cocktail Reception
20:00 Conference Dinner

September 28 – Tuesday - Day 2
Hands-on Training: Research Contracts and Technology Commercialization

9:00 – IP policies and negotiation of research contracts: do rigorous schemes to manage contract and intellectual property help or hinder contract/collaborative research?

Jorge Dias, CCMAR and CEO Sparus,
The SPAROS experience in the area of aquafeed technology

Aníbal Matos – INESC-Porto

Lorenz Kaiser, Fraunhofer - Division Director Legal Affairs and Contracts
Negotiation of Research Contracts

10:30 Round table discussion

11:00 - Coffee break

11:30 Portuguese Ideas competing in the International Market: US on-shoring

Overview of the challenges in accessing international markets. Key message here for researchers and spin-offs is: “think global from day one“. This session will also discuss how entrepreneurs can find financial resources to bridge the various gaps in the development and commercialization of their technologies, and otherwise be creative, flexible and resourceful in building a globally competitive technology. Typical structures of financing term sheets will be discussed in detail. Key question: “How to secure the resources needed for successful US on-shoring“.

Dr. Christine Burke, South Texas Technology Management (STTM)
How U.S. Universities Can Help International Companies On-Shore
An effective way to gain on-shoring resources at low initial cost is to partner with U.S. universities to address research gaps in the readiness of a technology to be commercialized. U.S. universities can also share their industry linkages and partnerships with international partners. This presentation will discuss these and other ways U.S. universities can help you on-shore.

William C. Strieber, President and CEO of ExiBio, LLC; Commercialization Consultant, UT-System
Be Creative and Resourceful: Case Studies in Resource Acquisition
Almost all new technology efforts struggle at points to secure the resources (funding, expertise, prototype development, and more) to move from concept to product. This presentation will bring guidance and case studies that demonstrate the details of how successful efforts secured the needed resources to complete their efforts, including discussion of a model for regional pooling of resources to fund internationalization.

12:30 - Round table discussion (also with spin-offs and start-ups from the region of Algarve)

13:00 - Lunch

14:30 – Case Studies and Hands-on Training: Contract negotiation

Dr. Christine Burke, South Texas Technology Management (STTM)
William C. Strieber, President and CEO of ExiBio, LLC, Commercialization Consultant, UT-System
Detailed case studies will be presented that demonstrate how contracts were successfully closed in support of commercialization of university technologies. The session will focus on the stories of getting the deals done, the details of the arrangements, and how those details contributed to the effort. Lessons from the case studies will suggest successful strategies and tactics. Dynamic, interactive exercises will enhance learning. The session will include comparison and contrasts between efforts in marine science, agriculture, and life science.

16:30 - Round table discussion

17h00 Closing Session

Abstracts

The Strategy and Economic Impact of Building a World Class Marine Science Institution
Frank Pezold, Dean, College of Science and Technology - Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi

Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi has transformed from a small, private, church-affiliated college to large public university in the Texas A&M University System. Having grown from 2,500 to 10,000 students since 1994, the university is executing a strategic plan to become formally designated as an Emerging Research University by 2015. The College of Science and Technology, with a focus on marine science at our “Island University,” is central to the success of the effort. To succeed, we are moving to a research-focused culture, hiring research faculty, and developing critical and nationally competitive doctoral programs. We are increasing our connections to the community at large, building capacity for transferring research through the development of engineering programs, technology commercialization functions, and partnership with the Coastal Bend Business Innovation Center and the National Business Incubation Association. Common themes throughout our efforts are the financial challenges, and the ultimate economic impact, of our efforts on our university, our community, and the economic development of our region. This presentation is a case study of how one university is transforming its mindset, focus and programs to become a leading research center and make an economic impact on its immediate and larger community.

Networking and commercialization in marine biotechnology - How the market has and can profit from marine genomics
Adelino V M Canário, Centre of Marine Sciences (CCMAR), University of Algarve

The sea is the cradle of life and harbors most of the biodiversity of the planet. It is simultaneously one of the least accessible environments and as consequence it is still largely unexplored. Biotechnology can have a broad definition to encompass any use of biological knowledge and techniques for the benefit of humankind. But a more restricted view considers more specifically genetic and molecular manipulations of biological material to obtain products and services for society. Genomics, the study of genomes in organisms, is a powerful approach to discover new protein molecules and metabolic pathways, with special functions such as enzymes, antibiotics and biopolymers. While assessing the genomes of viruses and prokaryotes is nowadays relatively straightforward the complexity and size of genomes of eucaryotes represents a technological challenge. Larger challenges are therefore taken by consortia and networks, as exemplified by various genome projects. Marine Genomics Europe is an example of one such consortium of more than 40 institutions initiated in 2003, which has achieved the sequencing of several genomes, and has evolved in different ways in different parts of Europe.

The Importance of Networks and Understanding End-Users: A Market Oriented Perspective on Marine Science Systems, Technologies and R&D
João Borges de Sousa, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Porto University
Download extended version [PDF]

In this talk we discuss how networking and user-oriented research are shaping the development of marine systems and technologies at the Underwater Systems and Technology Laboratory from Porto University. Unmanned vehicles have already proved invaluable in oceanographic and other field studies by providing levels of spatial temporal sampling resolution which could have not been attained before. Networked vehicle systems have the potential to revolutionize field studies. However, and despite the technological and scientific advances, we are still far from being able to design and deploy networked vehicle systems in a systematic manner, and within an appropriate scientific framework. This is our challenge. Over the years we have developed a unique approach to networked vehicle systems. Our challenge calls for interdisciplinary research and for experimentation and testing. However, this cannot be done without a long term sustainable development program. Sustainable development cannot be achieved without a market orientation. In fact, market is good test for user-oriented research. A credible presence in the market, especially when coming from a country without a strong technological image, requires credible partners and demonstrations. Our cooperation with the Portuguese Navy and Air Force is already providing tangible results in terms of products and technologies. Our cooperation with the Portuguese Task Force for the Extension of the Continental Shelf is motivated by the national interest, and is targeted at a real presence at sea. Demonstrations of unprecedented capabilities are crucial to both evaluate developments and test their practicality. These facts further attract the attention of companies and institutions in the international landscape. This attention strengthens the market orientation of developments, especially when this is channeled to spin-off companies sharing our vision.

Marine Aquaculture in the United States: Current and Future Challenges to Commercialization
Joan Holt, Associate Director, UT-Marine Science Institute

Global aquaculture will need to more than double by 2050 to meet the world’s demands for seafood. Aquaculture is the fastest growing global agriculture sector with an average 10% increase per year over the last two decades. Although most of this growth in occurring in China and other Asian countries, the United States needs a robust aquaculture industry to meet its rising seafood demand. For example we import over 1 billion pounds of shrimp annually and produce less than 4 million lbs through aquaculture. Many of the developments to support the rapidly growing field of aquaculture could involve universities. The payoff would come from developing new technology, which may generate royalties in the future, and expansion of knowledge. I will discuss aquaculture research at Port Aransas and how our work with red drum has been commercialized throughout the world, but without any prior planning on our part to pursuit patentable technologies or processes. Some aquaculture research is long-term such as the development of new species culture making it difficult to patent while other research might easily lead to commercialization such as nutrition or disease related studies. The tradeoff between the scientists’ motivation to advance the field of aquaculture by performing cutting edge research with timely publication vs. the need for confidentiality agreements to protection proprietary information is central to advancement.

Applications of anti-malarial endoperoxide drugs in aquaculture
Maria de Lurdes Cristiano, Centre of Marine Sciences (CCMAR), University of Algarve

Severe malaria is mostly caused by Plasmodium falciparum, a unicellular apicomplexa parasite. We have designed several antiplasmodial endoperoxide-type drug candidates which are based on fact that intraparasitic Fe(II) selectively activates these compounds generating radical species capable of damaging parasitic biomolecules.
Clams are a major economic production in the south of Portugal and worldwide, and clam culture in the Mediterranean suffers heavy losses caused by another apicomplexa parasite, Perkinsus olseni. Also in this parasite Fe(II) essential for proliferation and several tests with our anti-mallarian drugs demonstrate antiproliferative activity of selected antiplasmodial endoperoxides in Perkinsus cultures. Our experience indicates the possibility of development of parallel platforms drug evaluation and commercialization in different markets. This could represent a model for similar approaches in aquaculture, considering that the cost for drug development may hinder de novo solutions.

The Financial Value of Marine Observation Networks for Governments and Industry
Gary Jeffress, Professor Geographic Information Science Coordinator and Director of the Conrad Blucher Institute, Texas A&M Corpus Christi

The Texas Coastal Ocean Observation Network, operated by Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi, has for years performed fundamental and applied research in the area of physical and chemical coastal ocean observations. Over time, this work has been leveraged to create a service that provides near real-time scientific data for local, state, and federal governments, other institutions, and industry. Private corporations have built their own services around the system. This presentation will describe the history of the project with a focus on the commercial value it has provided to the university, the users of the system, and others who have come to rely on the service.

Underwater acoustics: applications and commercialization opportunities
Sérgio Jesus, ISR-U Algarve

Radio waves are highly attenuated in sea water and therefore the scientific and engineering community resorts to acoustics for ensuring data communication and environmental probing. Most known are acoustic current profilers, multibeam or sidescan sonars and military sonars in the high end and echo sounders in the low end commercial applications. With the advent of off the shelf marine robots and autonomous vehicles, underwater communications is now a slowly but surely expanding market that also sees a regain of interest due to the saturation of jobs on terrestrial wireless communications. Underwater acoustics continues to be a market where world class research is a selling argument and commercial products are developed directly from the researcher desk. Nowadays and in the future, a strong marine technology background is a sine qua non condition for any country to carry out top marine research and ocean exploration.

Negotiation of Research Contracts
Lorenz Kaiser, Fraunhofer Institute, Division Director Legal Affairs and Contracts

This hands-on training session will address:
1. Overview of the crucial points of negotiating non disclosure agreements; R&D contracts; and cooperation agreements with funding.
2. Case studies (NDA, R&D contract, and cooperation contract with some provoking clauses)
- Case#1: NDA – crucial problems (group discussion)
- Case#2: Biotech R&D contract (discuss an offer based on the FhG standard R&D terms and conditions and a typical answer from the side of the industrial partner with contradicting positions to the Fraunhofer offer).
- Case#3: cooperation agreement (based on the Lambert Modes contracts, with some dangerous legal “mistakes” in it. Participants will be divided into two groups and discuss the interests of industry and science position).

Download extended version [PDF]

The promise of algae as a source of transport fuel and the bumps-in-the-road of research consortia and commercialization of end-results
Sabine Krieg, Business Development, IGB, Fraunhofer

The development of marine technologies is an integral part of IGB Fraunhofer competitive projects.

The IGB is at the for front of photobioreactor development for the growth of microalgae, a raw material for the extraction of high value products for usage in dietary and health areas. Moreover the microalgae are also a sink for CO2, and can as well be used in biogas production.

Microalgae technologies, pave the way to the development of projects in several IGB Fraunhofer business areas, such as Energy, Environment and Pharmacy.

Algae are a natural renewable resource of unique products, little exploited until now, but which have an important role in solving energetic, environmental and pharmaceutical-related problems of future generations worldwide.

In this workshop the microalgae project will be used to show case the strategy in which the project has evolved from contract research and the involvement of Subitec a spin-off from Fraunhofer IGB, the generation of intellectual property, how the innovation process and business development were designed. This session will allow a transactional view of the Fraunhofer business model with a hands-on approach and demonstration of the methods and instruments for strategic partnerships by Fraunhofer.

Patenting and commercializing microorganisms from marine, hot environments as sources of new protein stabilizers
Helena Santos, Cell Physiology & NMR Group, Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica (ITQB)

Hyperthermophiles grow optimally at temperatures above 80ºC. Our main research interest is to understand the molecular adaptation strategies these organisms developed to preserve cell function at such high temperatures. Our team screened many hyperthermophiles, isolated from marine environments, for unusual metabolites that accumulate in response to heat and/or osmotic stress. This effort led to the identification of several new compounds whose potential as stabilizers of biomaterials was assessed, namely in the framework of European consortia (CRAFT project). As a result, six international patents were filed, four owned by IBET (Oeiras), one by STAB-Vida (a Portuguese SME) and another one by BIOCANT (Cantanhede). Three of these patents were licensed to bitop AG (Germany) in 2002 and the other three were subsequently abandoned due to lack of support by the owner institutions. This patenting activity represented a tremendous effort for the researchers, who received very little technical support and no intellectual or other type of reward.

The SPAROS experience in the area of aquafeed technology
Jorge Dias, CCMAR and CEO Sparus

Globally, the aquaculture production sector is facing various sustainability challenges, namely economical, environmental and more recently ethical. Such challenges are to be taken as opportunities for innovation. Based on a strong scientific expertise acquired on an academic environment, SPAROS (a spin-off company of CCMAR) created a pilot-scale feed technology platform to allow industrial partners to tackle some of these issues. The alliance of scientific knowledge and industrial relevant technologies allowed SPAROS to establish contract research activities with some major players of the aquafeed industry. At SPAROS, the degree of partnership and IP sharing in the development of products is variable, depending on the context of such activities. However, it seems clear that most industrials in the aquafeed sector seeking for contract research activities clearly value not only the scientific expertise, but also the reliability, confidentiality and practical approach of the research partner.