Academic Entrepreneurship: How to Bring Your Scientific Discovery to a Successful Commercial Product

Academic entrepreneurship is the ability of a faculty member to take a discovery from the lab and translate it into a commercial reality.  This can be done in several ways, but the two most common methods are either licensing existing intellectual property from the University to a major corporation that will then commercialize the technology; or starting a new company around the technology.  In academic training at the graduate student and faculty level, there is seldom training on the steps involved in these processes.

How many academics have been in this peculiar situation of wanting to spin their technology out of the lab toward commercialization, but did not even know where to begin? 

This unique book, Academic Entrepreneurship: How to Bring Your Scientific Discovery to a Successful Commercial Product gives easy– to–follow steps to make that discovery into a product through different pathways from licenses to start–ups dealing with technology transfer offices, market analysis, finding the right co–founder, and determining how to best finance and manage a venture Interviews with academic entrepreneurs and other key members of the academic entrepreneurial ecosystem provide commentary and share secret strategies for success along with some pitfalls to avoid.  

This manual is an indispensable road–map to successful commercialization of academic research that offers numerous key benefits like:

          Help with the growing trend of academic faculty commercializing discoveries

          A pathway and easy–to–follow steps towards determining whether a discovery / idea / technology is viable from a business perspective as well as how to execute the necessary steps to create a new start–up company

          A light–hearted and accessible style of a step–by–step guide to help graduate students, post–docs, and faculty learn how to go about spinning out their research from the lab

          Interviews by faculty in the disciplines of materials science, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, information technology, energy, and mechanical devices offering tips and discussing potential pitfalls to be avoided

Michele Marcolongo, PhD, is Department Head and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and has a laboratory focus in biomaterials.  In a past position as Senior Associate Vice Provost for Translational Research, she worked to translate research discoveries from the laboratory toward commercialization and served on the Operations Boards of the Nanotechnology Institute and the Energy Commercialization Institute. Dr. Marcolongo has co–founded two companies in the field of medical devices.