Grant to aid UW-Madison, industry partnership

With a $35,000 grant from the Industrial & Economic Research Program (I&EDR), UW–Madison chemistry professor Robert M. Corn and his laboratory will work with a local biotechnology company to advance the real-time detection of enzyme reactions – research that is particularly important for drug discovery.

“The I&EDR program funds research that is technically innovative, of interest to a broad economic sector and has a high potential to benefit Wisconsin’s industrial and economic development in the near term,” says Charles Hoslet, director of UW–Madison’s new Office of Corporate Relations. “Professor Corn’s research under this program will have direct relevance to commercial applications and will support the university’s goal of facilitating technology transfer from the university to the private sector.”

Corn, who has worked many years to establish a method called Surface Plasmon Resonance as a technique for detecting biomolecular interactions, says, “We are delighted that we will receive funds that will enable us to extend our scientific discoveries to areas of major commercial importance.”

Corn’s research project will be carried out in cooperation with Madison’s GWC Technologies Inc., which will provide instrumentation, software development and molecular genetics support for the project. Corn is one of the three founders of the company and serves on its scientific advisory board. The company currently licenses technology from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, a nonprofit agency that commercializes intellectual property for UW–Madison.