Nanotechnology: Discovery and Commercialization

Thursday, May 09, 2013

Nanotechnology encompasses a vast array of research and engineering topics, from controlling nanoparticle sizes or tuning the optical properties, to arranging carbon nanotubes in a polymer matrix for improved electrical properties, to building super-sensitive chemical and biological probes. Nanotechnology products are now affecting our lives in areas as diverse as health care, the environment, and national security, and we are still only at the tip of the iceberg. Already a center for research and development and home to several “firsts” in nanotechnology, Philadelphia is well positioned for nanotechnology innovation. During her keynote address, Karen I. Winey will give an overview of the area’s resources in education, financial support, and facilities for nanoscale research, fabrication, and characterization. She will also highlight a few nanotechnologies that have their origins right here in Philadelphia.

Daryl Boudreaux
Principal, Boudreaux & Associates; Emeritus Chief Scientific Officer, NanoHoldings LLC

Boudreaux and Associates provides nanotechnology commercialization and business-development consulting services. NanoHoldings LLC is an early-stage innovation commercialization and investment company founded in 2003 by Daryl Boudreaux and partners. Before helping found NanoHoldings, Boudreaux established and led the technology-transfer office at Rice University and grew it rapidly to parity with similar universities. In six years there he started thirteen new companies, nine of which were based on Rice nanotechnology inventions. He was responsible for assessment and commercialization of technologies that grew from university research programs and for negotiating all intellectual property and business-development matters for the university. Before his work at Rice he established and led the Office of Technology Transfer for the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, and before that worked for AlliedSignal for 25 years, where he was a senior executive in the corporate RD&E organization. He began his career at AlliedSignal as a physicist, initially carrying out research in materials science and chemistry. The job at AlliedSignal was preceded by an associate professorship of physics at the Polytechnic University of New York, and Boudreaux was a postdoctoral research associate at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University. He earned his Ph.D. in physics from Pennsylvania State University. He is a native of New Orleans, where he earned his B.S. degree in physics at Loyola University.

Michael D. Patterson
CEO, Graphene Frontiers

Michael D. Patterson is the CEO of Graphene Frontiers, a spin-out company from the University of Pennsylvania. Mike is an experienced entrepreneur with two previous start-ups under his belt. He also spent four years at FreeMarkets helping develop and grow their diversified manufacturing practice and low-cost country sourcing products. Patterson is a technology geek at heart. He holds a degree in history of science from Princeton University and an M.B.A. degree in entrepreneurial management from the Wharton School; he also completed the executive program in technology commercialization at Stanford University with Steve Blank and is a certified patent valuation analyst.  Graphene Frontiers won the inaugural National Science Foundation Innovation Corps award in 2011. The company’s patent-pending method enables cost-effective production of large-area graphene sheets, which is expected to disrupt multibillion-dollar markets, including thin, flexible displays; thin-film organic photovoltaics; supercapacitors; and batteries. Graphene Frontiers has solved the problem of scale: Graphene films can now be manufactured roll to roll and transferred to nearly any substrate.

Philip E. Caldwell
Associate Director, Office of Technology Commercialization, Drexel University

Philip E. Caldwell works with faculty and students to identify new technologies, interacts with attorneys to protect university intellectual property, identifies licensees, and negotiates licenses. Caldwell also works closely with several companies to identify promising research and helps create collaborations that assist both the university and the company. He is also a director at the Energy Commercialization Institute (ECI) and a member of the Nanotechnology Institute (NTI). The ECI is an eight-member organization of Philadelphia-area research institutions that work together to create, fund, and promote energy-related technologies specifically for translational research. The ECI focuses on four general areas of research—transportation, generation, power management, and conservation—and all funded projects are focused on near-term commercialization. The ECI leverages State of Pennsylvania funding to administer grants to the member institutions and provides a knowledge base for companies and start-ups. Similarly, the NTI is a twelve-member organization of Philadelphia-area research institutions that creates, funds, and promotes nanotechnology-related technologies. Caldwell has a B.A. degree and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and cell biology from Rice University.

Bryan W. Berger
Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, Lehigh University

Bryan W. Berger received his B.Sc. degree in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1999; during that time he was a DAAD academic exchange scholar at the Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the Technical University of Garching in Germany. He spent a brief time working as a product engineer in the Hospital Products Division of Abbott Laboratories before returning to graduate school, receiving his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware in 2005. From 2005 to 2009 Berger was National Institutes of Health National Research Service Award postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he worked in the laboratory of William DeGrado, before joining Lehigh University as an assistant professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering in 2010. Berger has received a 2012 National Science Foundation BRIGE award, and his work spans a range of diverse topics, including receptor signal transduction, protein engineering, biosurfactant design, and scalable biosynthesis of nanomaterials and other protein-based materials.

Karen I. Winey
Professor, Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Director, Nanotechnology and Energy Commercialization Institutes, University of Pennsylvania

Karen I. Winey is a professor of materials science and engineering and of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and she also directs the university’s Nanotechnology and Energy Commercialization Institutes. Funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the institutes have twelve member colleges and universities and work to promote translational research. Winey is also an associate editor of Macromolecules. Her current interests include polymer nanocomposites and ion-containing polymers. She designs and fabricates polymer nanocomposites containing carbon nanotubes and metal nanowires to understand how to improve their mechanical, thermal, and especially electrical conductivity and resistive switching properties. Polymer dynamics in the presence of nanoparticles is also of interest. In ion-containing polymers, including block copolymers and polymers with ionic liquids, Winey combines imaging and scattering methods to provide unprecedented morphological insights. Her current efforts focus on correlating nanoscale structures with ion-transport properties. Both within her group and with collaborators she couples experimental studies with simulation and theory in both research areas. Winey received a B.S. degree in materials science and engineering from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Following a postdoctoral position at AT&T Bell Laboratories she joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. She was the chair of the Polymer Physics Gordon Research Conference (2010) and will be the chair of the Division of Polymer Physics of the American Physical Society (2013). She has received a Special Creativity Award from the National Science Foundation (2009−2011) and Penn Engineering’s George H. Heilmeier Faculty Award for Excellence in Research (2012). Her honors also include being named an American Physical Society fellow (2003) and a Materials Research Society fellow (2013).