Loma Linda University Partners With Larta Institute for Technology Marketing Program

LOS ANGELES, April 10 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Science Foundation
(NSF) has awarded Loma Linda University a three-year Partnership for
Innovation (PFI) grant of $593,978 to lead a consortium in developing an
innovative model for marketing research discoveries from Southern
California universities. Barry L. Taylor, Ph.D., Professor of Microbiology
and Molecular Genetics, and former Vice President for Research Affairs,
will lead the project with Rohit Shukla, CEO and founder of Larta
Institute, the lead private partner in this award. Commenting on the award,
Taylor said, "Loma Linda University will work closely with Larta Institute
to develop a Larta concept that will enable universities to jointly market
their discoveries by bundling related technologies from different
universities."

Larta Institute (http://www.larta.org), a non-profit commercialization
assistance corporation, pioneered the concept involved in the application
to NSF. Speaking about the award, Shukla said, "While it is hard work to
bundle technologies developed by multiple institutions, the approach is the
right one for the world we live in." Larta founded Network T2
(http://www.larta.org/networkt2.asp), in which the technology transfer
offices from regional universities and research institutions work
collaboratively to overcome challenges to technology commercialization.

The title of the awarded project is "Inter-University Technology
Bundling Project (IUTBP)." It builds on a pilot program called Virtual
Bundling Agent developed by Larta between 2005 and 2007, in which related
intellectual property from Network T2 members was pooled into bundles and
then presented to the private sector. The pilot was supported by an award
from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

The overall goal of IUTBP is to increase successfully transferred
innovation coming from NT2 institutions by overcoming competitive issues,
creating virtual bundles of compatible intellectual property from multiple
NT2 sources and facilitating the transfer of those bundles to the
marketplace.

The regional academic and research institutions participating in the
program include Cal Poly Pomona, California Institute of Technology,
California State University-San Bernardino, California State University-
Fullerton, California State University-Los Angeles, Cedars-Sinai Medical
Center, City of Hope, Claremont College's Keck Graduate Institute of
Applied Life Science, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, Pepperdine
University, University of California-Irvine, University of California-Los
Angeles, University of California-Riverside, University of California-San
Diego, San Diego State University, University of California-Santa Barbara,
University of California-Santa Cruz and University of Southern California.

For more information about the NSF PFI Award, please contact Carol
Grande, Director of Intellectual Property & Contacts, Loma Linda
University, at 909-558-7184.

For more information about Larta Institute, its programs and the
Virtual Bundling Agent, please contact Constanza Pachon, Chief Operating
Officer, at cpachon@larta.org or 213-538-1451.

This release was issued through eReleases(TM). For more information,
visit http://www.ereleases.com.





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Via: Healthcare