CSU on track to more than double inventions in three years
Trevor Hughes • Coloradoan • January 26, 2009

CSU researchers have more than doubled the number of their inventions in two years, an achievement the university says is directly connected to its Supercluster concept.

CSU’s Superclusters are organized efforts in targeted areas – clean energy, cancer and infections diseases – bringing researchers together with business experts, patent attorneys and other private-sector partners. They speed up the process of putting technology and research into the hands of people who can use it, say officials from Colorado State University.

The Superclusters are specifically intended to help spin off new businesses, which CSU officials see as an important goal for the university because they create jobs and wealth. CSU began pushing the Superclusters in earnest in 2006.

“The number of invention disclosures says to us that more and more faculty are engaging with us,” said Todd Headley, director of technology transfer for the CSU Research Foundation. “Raising awareness not just externally but internally is a big piece of this.”

According to CSURF, invention disclosures rose from 42 in 2006 to 80 in 2007, 91 last year, and are on track to hit about 100 this year.

CSURF is a nonprofit legally charged with helping develop CSU’s scientific research into commercial products.

The Superclusters themselves do not create new research, but instead focus extra attention on research in areas that CSU experts are looking at.

CSU on Monday announced the formation of KromaTiD Inc., a Supercluster spinoff that examines, in part, how DNA is affected by radiation.

The announcement follows a Friday report issued by a coalition of advocacy groups that says Colorado now ranks 11th in the country for bioscience venture capital investments, with $1.3 billion invested from 2002 through the second quarter of 2008, and that bioscience employment has increased 5.5 percent since 2003.

The report said CSU has created 13 bioscience companies from 2002-2007, and that the University of Colorado helped create 38 companies in the same period. CU has a medical center and receives about three times as many bioscience research dollars as CSU does, Headley said.

“You can’t simply turn on the faucet. It takes time and dollars and people to really build this up,” Headley said of the Supercluster concept. “As with anything, the longer you do it, the better. This is pretty new. And there’s already a pretty big impact and that should continue to grow.”

Former CSU President Larry Penley placed a heavy emphasis on commercializing CSU’s research efforts, and pushed for the creation of the Superclusters.

Two of the three CSU Superclusters fall under the life or bioscience umbrella: one dedicated to cancer research, and another to infectious diseases. The third focuses on renewable energy.

"More than 18,000 Coloradans are now involved in this field,” Gov. Bill Ritter said of the biosciences report. “We want to continue this industry growth trend and build upon our successes. Using the updated action plan will allow us to be more targeted and strategic in our planning, as well as to better compete at a national and international level.”