RESEARCH OREGON 2006: UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
A research engine gains strength
RESEARCH IS THRIVING at the University of Oregon, feeding the
state’s economy and giving students many opportunities to
step beyond books into hands-on training that can mold
tomorrow’s innovative leaders.
Among ongoing projects are separate quests (Thomas J. Dishion,
psychology, and Hill M. Walker, human development) to
understand the dynamics of child-parent relationships and how
to intervene in related behavioral problems.
Monte Westerfield focuses on properties of neurons and how
they are regulated, using anatomical, physiological, molecular
and genetic techniques. Physicist S. James Remington pursues
fluorescent proteins for use as biosensors in living cells,
while James E. Hutchison and colleagues use environmentally
friendly “green” chemistry — and educate
scientists elsewhere how to do so — in their
molecular-level production of functional structures for use in
nanotechnology.
Despite his retirement from teaching, chemist John F.W. Keana,
whose name appears on 69 patents, continues to create molecules
for use in biochemistry, molecular biology or medicine.
Whether research is basic (in quest of general knowledge) or
applied (targeting specific problems), it is the cornerstone of
higher education. Projects often involve faculty members from
different fields and student support. A record 20,394 students
were on campus last fall, and 286 undergraduates took research
courses while 1,143 graduate students worked in
laboratories.
University of Oregon research is harvesting record amounts of
external funding and new inventions and spawning spinoff
companies.
External funds — mostly federal — represent more
than 90% of the research budget. Since 2000-1, such funding has
increased 67%, from $57.8 million to a record $96.5 million in
2005-6. Increases from the National Science Foundation, U.S.
Department of Education and National Institutes of Health have
boosted research in education, molecular biology, computer and
material sciences, psychology, and sociology.
State figures for 2004-5 showed the university generated $566
million in economic activity. In that same period the
university produced 45 inventions, earned $3.4 million from
technology transfer, and formed three spinoff companies. Annual
income from technology transfer rose from $313,000 in fiscal
year 2000 to $4.3 million in 2006, and during that six-year
span university researchers reported 226 inventions.
The University of Oregon now ranks among the top U.S.
institutions in both licensing income and new startup companies
per research dollar. A recent success story is MitoSciences,
Inc., which uses mitochondria to test for toxicity in
pharmaceuticals. The company, founded by Roderick A. Capaldi
(biology) and Michael Marusich (neuroscience), took home
$150,000 from state investors by capturing the winner-take-all
2006 Angel Oregon competition sponsored by the Oregon
Entrepreneurs Forum.
And this year, work began on the $76 million Integrative
Science Complex.
Phase One, underground, will be associated with the Oregon
Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI), a
consortium of the University of Oregon, Oregon State
University, Portland State University, Pacific Northwest
National Laboratories and the region’s high-technology
companies. Outside researchers and industry will have access to
equipment through a fee-for-service ONAMI Nanonet.
The complex eventually will house collaborating scientists
from biology, geological sciences, neuroimaging, green
nanoscience, materials science, cognitive neuroscience, optics,
genomics and molecular biology.
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