The Lab to Market Transition: Lessons from Faculty, Students, and Other Research Staff (2022)
Join us in celebrating the Boston University 2021 Innovator of the Year Awardee Dr. Selim Ünlü, Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ENG).
To celebrate innovation at Boston University and recognize Dr. Ünlü, BU Technology Development has organized a discussion focused on the lab-to-market transition. Research often leads to discoveries that enable new products and services that solve critical problems and create positive societal impact. But the transition from research discovery to product development can often feel mysterious. The panel will look to demystify the commercialization process by addressing questions such as:
- How do researchers recognize and appreciate that their lab results have the potential to form the basis for new products/services?
- Under which circumstances do researchers decide to invest valuable time to explore these product/service opportunities?
- What role do graduate students play in the transition?
- How can graduate students manage the completion of their academic requirements while also exploring and learning how to create new companies based on their research?
Join this virtual event to hear from a diverse group of current and former graduate students and faculty who have experience navigating this transition. View slides and takeaways.
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Featuring:
- Prof. David Bishop and Postdoctoral Researcher Josh Javor
- Prof. James Galagan and Graduate Student Uros Kuzmanovic
- Prof. Sean Andersson and Graduate Student Nicholas Vickers
- BU alumnus George Daaboul, CSO and co-founder of NanoView Biosciences
- Rana Gupta, Director of Faculty Entrepreneurship (moderator)
About the 2021 Boston University Innovator of the Year
M. Selim Ünlü is a Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering. Dr. Ünlü is an internationally recognized expert on photodetectors and nanophotonics. He has given more than 100 invited talks, authored and co-authored more than 250 articles, 10 book chapters, and several magazine articles; edited one book; holds 15 US patents; and has several patents pending. Dr. Ünlü received his BS in electrical engineering from Middle East Technical University in 1986 and his PhD from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1992.
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Dr. Tom Bifano, Director of the BU Photonics Center, describes Dr. Ünlü’s contributions as an innovator as follows:
Professor Ünlü’s extraordinary record of academic achievement in the field of photonics centers on coherent interferometric sensing. He was among the first researchers to exploit the remarkable precision of semiconductor thin film fabrication technology for its optical advantages. What Ünlü discovered was that by tailoring thin film thickness and index of refraction differences among adjacent layers in an inexpensive semiconductor wafer and then illuminating that wafer with a light-emitting diode in a wide field microscope, he could detect nearby biomolecules or semiconductor structures with unprecedented sensitivity and high selectivity. He pioneered the use of this innovation in two important application areas: molecular biosensing of viral pathogens and optical characterization of semiconductor circuits.
In biosensing, Ünlü dubbed his new technique “Interferometric Reflectance Image Sensing” (IRIS) and procured a substantial portfolio of patents. Applications include label-free detection of multiplexed protein chips for drug discovery, quantification of DNA binding, and detection of biological pathogens such as viruses.
IRIS has been commercialized in a variety of forms, most notably by doctoral graduates of the Unlu
research program. Alumni G. Daaboul and D. Freedman started Nanoview Biosciences, securing NSF
SBIR Phase I/II funding, and Series B venture funding. Nanoview is now a leading source for exosome
characterization and diagnostics. Additional technology translation efforts were catalyzed by BU’s NSF
Industry/University Collaborative Research Center, through which Ünlü’s technology was sponsored by
two different industry partners: SCIENION AG (a microarray company) and InBios International
(developer immunodiagnostics for infectious diseases). More recently, Ünlü founded iRiS Kinetics Inc. At
a meeting of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS 2020), that company’s first
product was a runner-up in the “best new product” competition.
In semiconductor sensing, Ünlü has developed a compelling portfolio of techniques to probe IC circuits at
the limits of achievable resolution. These have profound use in fault diagnosis and in chip security
applications. For example, his most recent patent on optical antennas describes a technique to use
nanoscale metal structures at test locations of a semiconductor device. The antennas can be used to
transmit and receive information about the IC’s integrity and functionality. Notably, the technique uses
metal layers that are already part of the IC fabrication process, so that it achieves its function without
changing the fundamental device manufacturing process.
Ünlü’s academic mentorship is well-known to be among the most innovation-centric on the Charles River Campus. His group includes multiple doctoral students who have become entrepreneurs, and his PhD students are co-inventors on most of his fifteen issued patents.