Industrial Technology Adviser (ITA)--Food Science, Macdonald Campus
The Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) is pleased to announce and welcome Dr. Bernice Mills to the position of Industrial Technology Adviser (ITA)--Food Science, Macdonald Campus. Bernice has replaced Jonathan Farber, who during 1995 moved to OTT to assume the duties of Technology Transfer Officer, Plant and Food Sciences and Chemistry.
The ITA program, funded by NRC, is designed to help small- and medium-sized companies solve their technological problems. Dr. Mills will thus act as a technology transfer liaison between the providers of technological expertise (University staff) and the users of technological expertise (industry). Although Dr. Mills's office is located at the Macdonald Campus, her services are available to all faculty with an interest in foods, food processing or food sciences. Dr. Mills can be reached at local 8135.
A recent Gazette article on Technology Transfer at McGill
OTT would like to draw your attention to an article which appeared in the business section of The Gazette on April 1. The title of the article was "Breaking down the fences: Dollars for scholars." This article contains a very good review of what the University, through OTT, has been doing to help researchers commercialize their inventions.
For McGill researchers, this article details three important messages: 1) How McGill, through OTT, helped Dr. Jeff Turner set up a company to commercialize his invention, 2) How research contracts handled by OTT are growing and helping the University and 3) How OTT can help inventors license their inventions.
If you wish to read this article, copies can be obtained from OTT, local 4200.
A Recent Licensing Success
A recent example of OTT's increasing activities in licensing is our interaction with Hybridon, Inc., a Massachusetts company. This company has now licensed two potentially therapeutic technologies which have come out of Dr. M. Szyf's laboratory in the Department of Pharmacology. One of these technologies, the so-called "DNA MeTase" technology, has now led to the incorporation by Hybridon, Inc. of Methylgene Inc., a Montreal-based company, in which Hybridon. participates with Quebec institutional investors. This "DNA MeTase" technology is at the basis of Methylgene Inc.'s efforts to develop and market anti-sense compounds to inhibit DNA methyltransferase for the treatment of cancers and other methods of inhibiting DNA methyltransferase for the treatment of any indications. In addition, Methylgene Inc. is continuing the funding of pertinent research in Dr. Szyf's laboratory, which was started some years ago by Hybridon, Inc., through a research agreement.