Hours after headlines drew worldwide attention to a remarkable research breakthrough that emerged from University of Alberta engineering labs, Dr. Daniel Kwok was beached by a tidal wave of e-mail.

Inquiries from fellow scientists.

Kudos from colleagues.

And a series of overheated pitches from venture capitalists, anxious to back a winner.

Photo courtesy Richard Siemens, Creative Services, U of A
The U of A research team of, left to right, Fuzhi Lu, Dr. Daniel Kwok, Dr. Larry Kostiuk, and Jun Yang have discovered how to generate energy by directing tap water against a solid surface.

“I’m a scientist . . . not a businessman,” groaned Kwok, shell-shocked by the overwhelming response to a discovery he shares with Dr. Larry Kostiuk.

With the help of grad students Jun Yang and Fuzhi Lu, the two professors hit on a discovery they’re calling the Electrokinetic Microchannel Battery – an energy source able to generate 10 volts and a few thousandths of an ampere by directing a stream of tap water against a solid surface.

Hailed as the first significant leap in power-generation theory since the early 19th century, the lab results could lead to a marketable source of alternative energy, though it’s too early to speculate on how or when.

Nevertheless, visions of an initial public offering (IPO) are already doing the boogaloo in feverish entrepreneurial brains.

Fortunately for the scientists, a team of street-smart pros is running interference for them – the campus technology transfer group, which works out of the U of A’s research services office.

To protect their people, tech-transfer experts filed a patent long before the story broke. Because this is not as unusual a situation as you might think.

Matter of fact, the U of A has filed 183 patents in the last nine years. And 82 companies have been spun out of campus research breakthroughs since 1984. Of those, 69 remain active, which is a more than respectable batting average.

Prominent examples include such “life-science” companies as Biomira Inc., AltaRex Corp. and Isotechnika Inc.

Cochrane-based Dynastream Innovations is another exciting case in point. In 2000, CEO Kip Fyfe contracted with Nike to produce the SpeedMax, a cadillac among pedometers which was developed by Fyfe’s researcher brother, Ken.

Tech-transfer offices began cropping up on Canadian campuses in the early 1990s. They were created to assist and protect researchers such as Kwok and Kostiuk – scientists who’d be delighted to reap a financial harvest from their efforts, but who are not inclined to swap the lab for the marketplace.

(Nevertheless, filing patents is a venerable campus tradition. The U of A’s first patent was issued in 1929, to protect a new process for extracting hydrocarbons from sand.)

Most Canadian campuses are wired into this trend, including the University of Calgary. University Technologies International Inc., wholly owned by the U of C, performs the same services as the U of A’s tech-transfer group, though UTI is a self-contained, profit-generating corporation.

“Sometimes researchers prefer to licence an invention to an external company,” explained Jason Darrah, who speaks for the U of A tech-transfer team.

“Or a new company is created as a spinoff, in which case everybody wins.”

Certainly the university does. Since U of A’s tech-transfer office opened in 1994, the school has collected $26 million as its share of licensing revenue.

A portion of that money helps cover operating costs for the technology transfer office. After all, filing a single patent can set back the budget as much as $8,000. The remainder of the campus share is funnelled back into research.

And since Canadian researchers such as Kwok and Kostiuk retain ownership of the intellectual property, they stand to gain most, should commercial applications lead to profits.

“Revenue you can offer back to researchers is also an effective way to retain the brightest stars and an incentive to recruit the brightest stars,” Darrah pointed out.

“But it’s strictly the option of the researchers,” he continued. “They can proceed on their own or opt to work with the university.”

Those who choose the lab can relax. The tech transfer team co-ordinates market research, legal work, management recruitment and negotiations, often with major international corporations.

Though licensing offers the advantage of offloading the high cost of product testing and clinical trials, the U of A prefers the spinoff route.

“The beauty of a spinoff company such as Biomira or AltaRex is that they employ highly-skilled people from the (Edmonton) community,” Darrah said.

Such arrangements also work well for the U of A, since the school generally retains an equity share in the new companies.

Should a company be sold, the campus takes its cut, same as any other shareholder.

And the profits permit brilliant scientists such as Kwok and Kostiuk to continue doing their thing in peace.