It usually isn't good news when your researchers tell you, "We totally messed up this experiment, but..." yet for Kerry Swift, Technology Licensing Officer for UVM's Office of Technology Commercialization, that's exactly the story she wants to hear. Swift explained to me recently that the best inventions always seem to come out of botched experiments giving surprising results. She's in a position to know: she's helped hundreds of researchers over the last 19 years with identifying discoveries that have commercialization potential and then sending those projects off on their technology transfer journey.

As a Technology Licensing Officer, Swift's role starts at the very beginning. Her goal is to help researchers over hurdles on the long road to making a new technology a reality. Just what that help looks like can be very different case-by-case. She could provide resources and advice to assist with researching and securing patents, early prototyping, building a new company around the new discovery, finding an industry collaboration, or licensing the discovery to an existing company. As I understood it, she doesn't so much help start-ups, as help start-ups get started.

Swift didn't set out to work in technology transfer. She was in a Molecular and Microbiology PhD program at Tufts University, but was frustrated with the narrow focus of academic research. Along the way she met a clinician who was also a researcher conducting experiments using bacillus spores for vaccine delivery. Swift was drawn to the practical applications of that research and ultimately learned about the technology transfer field.

Swift may work on technology transfer now, but a foundation in biology has been invaluable to all the biotechnology transfers she handles. About 60% of UVM's research funding is tied to biomedical fields. Unsurprisingly, the Office of Technology Commercialization is equally focused on bioscience technologies. And a big bonus for Swift? She can have a broad focus: researchers come to her with projects across many biology- and medicine-related fields.

One of the biggest questions on Swift's mind these days is, "How can we grow Vermont bioscience companies?" She's seen a lot of new companies or collaborations start out of state, but she'd like to see more of these budding bioscience technologies stay closer to home. She cites therapeutic and pre-clinical discoveries as especially difficult to establish in Vermont. Part of the difficulty is money: therapeutic and pre-clinical technologies are often long-term, expensive investments and most investors with enough capital are located in Boston or California. Another challenge facing new Vermont bioscience companies is finding the right people. People with pre-clinical drug development experience have a unique skill set and also tend to congregate around the money.

While the Office of Technology Commercialization, the State of Vermont, and the VBSA are still working to understand all of the challenges that face future Vermont bioscience start-ups, Swift is confident the VBSA will be a key partner in growing a thriving bioscience ecosystem. She was part of the early conversations that shaped the vision of the VBSA as connecting what would otherwise be isolated companies, and in the years since she's seen the VBSA do "a great job of networking our small but vibrant community."

Looking to the future, Swift plans to continue supporting the bioscience ecosystem in Vermont by building and growing bioscience companies "in a Vermont way". She hopes she'll have opportunities to work with VBSA member companies that are interested in collaborating with UVM researchers. She adds, "anyone who's looking for a new technology to build a company around, we've got that!"

For an illustrated look at the tech transfer process click here