Collaboration is Key to Achieving Translational Goals

By Luke Thorstenson

The translation of research from discovery to invention and eventually to the market has always been a major focus for the Institute for NanoBioTechnology (INBT). Because INBT has a diverse range of research topics, we continue to expand our translational programming and support to meet the needs of our faculty, fellows, and students. The three main translational goals for our Corporate Partnership Office are to identify potential industry partners to fund and/or collaborate on sponsored research opportunities for our faculty (or license existing patents), provide education and training for the commercialization of discoveries and/or inventions, and secure funding to create new companies.

To accomplish these goals, we work closely with Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures (JHTV). JHTV was launched in 2014 to support the translation of Johns Hopkins University’s (JHU) academic excellence into commercial applications. It was because of this close working relationship that we brought JHTV’s senior leadership, Christy Wyskiel and Brian Stansky, to INBT in November to participate in the first INBT Translational Research Seminar. Wyskiel serves as Senior Advisor to the President for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Stansky is Senior Director of FastForward, a coordinated suite of resources designed to efficiently move technologies from startup to marketplace. During the seminar Wyskiel and Stansky detailed how JHTV provides funding, space, and resources to maximize the impact of JHU research through commercialization and entrepreneurship.

INBT’s Corporate Partnership Office works closely with any faculty interested in starting their own company through a new structure that breaks the JHU/JHTV programs down into three distinct phases—enrichment, improvement, and scale. Our talented staff and advisory board members provide one-on-one support to help our faculty create a plan and use resources available to them as Johns Hopkins investigators. Through our support, and close coordination with the great staff at JHTV, we hope to de-mystify the process and give our faculty’s technology the best chance to succeed and make a real impact for the world. The full translational program is being finalized and we plan to release it in summer 2020.

One often overlooked aspect of translational research is the customer discovery process. Years ago, the National Science Foundation (NSF) hired a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur to help determine why many of the projects they funded never made it to the mar