|
When new technology is introduced to the commercial or consumer market, its discovery may be based on years of methodical research and study. When it’s time to make the transfer from research to production, scientists most often hand off the project to an experienced business enterprise.
However, an increasing number of researchers are choosing to retain control by launching their own companies and taking on the additional responsibilities of corporate executives. Bruce Applegate, Byron Jenkinson and Michael Ladisch are three researchers who followed this path.
Principles learned under the hood hold true in research and business
When Bruce Applegate was a teenager, he spent many hours working on cars. His first was a 1969 Rambler Rebel, which may explain why his stories feature more time under the hood than behind the wheel.
“A good scientist is like a good mechanic,” says Purdue researcher Bruce Applegate, who is restoring this vintage Javelin AMX. “You have to troubleshoot and problem solve.” |
His second car was a Javelin AMX. He spent a memorable Fourth of July rewiring it, only to find that it wouldn’t start at the end of the day. He sat seething in his silent vehicle and nearly jumped out of his skin when a neighbor kid shot off a bottle rocket that landed under the car and went off. This surprise rocket burst may have been just the jumpstart he needed, as something clicked in his brain, and he realized the error of his electrical ways.
Applegate, now a food science researcher at Purdue University, still tinkers with cars. He considers the time spent rebuilding vehicles part of the experience that fuels his research into food pathogens and ways to spot and stop them. “A good mechanic is like a good scientist,” says Applegate, who makes this analogy to students in his lab. “You have to troubleshoot and problem solve. If the fuel system doesn’t work, you start with a hypothesis and use experiments to reject possibilities until you find the answer. It’s the same method for research.”
Applegate’s problem-solving approach led to a discovery that has the potential to prevent thousands of cases of food-borne illnesses. To get this new procedure into practice in the food industry, Applegate took a less-traditional approach. Instead of licensing the technology to an existing company, he cofounded Intelliphage, his own business venture, in 2008.
The company is based on Applegate’s research using a phage—a type of virus—that seeks out bacteria and then catches them “red-handed.” The phage lives and reproduces within bacteria. In research funded by Purdue’s Center for Food Safety Engineering and NASA, Applegate modified a virus that grows in E.coli O157:H7.
This pathogen may cause more than 70,000 illnesses each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When the phage finds E.coli O157:H7 in a food product, it turns the bacteria red so that the pathogen is easily detected.
Patenting the technology was a no-brainer, Applegate says. But the next step—forming a company to produce and market the phage—was a leap that needed much more consideration. “I knew the idea worked in the lab, but I had to ask myself, ‘Can you mass produce it? Do people want it?’ Those were some of the questions I had to answer before starting a business,” he says. “You can build a better mousetrap, but if people can’t use it, then it’s no good.”
Applegate cleared those hurdles and a few more that came his way. His company is now refining the technology for use in the food industry. “Many food companies already have the equipment to measure light in food, so we are adjusting our virus to make the bacteria luminescent,” he explains. “That will make our technology fit into current industry protocols.”
|
