Selvum Pillay, Uday Vaidya, Ph.D., and J. Barry Andrews, Ph.D., have worked with enough composite materials through the years to know a good product when they see it — especially when they make it themselves.

(From left to right) Barry Andrews, Uday Vaidya and Selvum Pillay show Engineering Dean Linda Lucas a sample of their composite material. Andrews, Vaidya and Pillay comprise the first UAB team to win the Alabama Launchpad business plan competition.

“This was really a team effort among many people who work with us in the Department of Engineering,” says Pillay, associate professor of materials science and engineering. “Alabama Launchpad is such a great idea and an outstanding opportunity for people who work in academics to try and commercialize the things they develop.”

Pillay’s team, the first UAB group to win the competition since its inception in 2007, will receive $100,000 to help start its company, Innovative Composite Solutions Inc., which will provide solutions for the replacement of metal components and structures in applications that demand improved performance. The thermoplastic composite materials they will produce are a lightweight, recyclable, heat-reversible and fiber-reinforced plastic.

“We’ve done some parts like doors for buses and floor panels, and there is going to be a continued push for lighter-weight vehicles because of a focus on energy efficiency,” Vaidya says. “There is going to be a big need for parts for lightweight automobiles. Plus, in Birmingham’s large racing community there is a big market for cheaper yet high-performance parts for race cars and motorcycles. It really has very broad potential.”

Alabama Launchpad was formed in 2006 by six of the state’s research universities and the business community to increase economic development and entrepreneurial growth.

Its goals are straightforward:

• To increase the supply of entrepreneurs in Alabama.
• To make it easy for new entrepreneurs to network with key individuals.
• To help local investors evaluate the risks of startup companies and become more comfortable investing in Alabama technologies.
• To increase collaboration among participating universities.

Spectrum PhenomX takes second
A combined UAB-University of Alabama team placed second in the competition. The group, led by Sharney Logan, director of business development for the UAB Center for Biophysical Science & Engineering, has formed Spectrum PhenomX.

Spectrum PhenomX will commercialize a technology developed by John Hartman, M.D., assistant professor of genetics, for streamlining genetic analysis of complex diseases using high-throughput phenotyping of cells. The cell phenotypes provide a quantitative and genomic assessment of the ways variant genes can change activities of cellular pathways and can trigger specific disease processes.

“The technology advances a systems-biology approach to the discovery and development of new drugs,” Logan says. “Dr. Hartman’s technology has tremendous commercial value because it provides a novel approach to developing personalized medicines, a new trend in drug development stemming from the success of the Human Genome Project.”

Logan and Hartman won $50,000, which will help Spectrum PhenomX make its phenomics platform commercially available for drug-discovery research.

“A vast accumulation of genomic information has changed the way scientists think about the number and complexity of gene functions that contribute to practically every disease,” Hartman says.

“New technologies and experimental approaches intended to support personalized medicine must account for the role that multiple, interacting genes play. Spectrum PhenomX hopes to contribute value to this area of research.”

Both teams are hopeful that their companies will grow and create jobs here in Birmingham, and they expect the process to be hastened by their success in the competition. Vaidya expects Innovative Composite Solutions to create manufacturing jobs, and Spectrum PhenomX expects to create a range of biotechnology-related job opportunities.

“We appreciated the chance to compete against others in the state, and there were many exciting new ventures presented in the competition,” Logan says. “I hope this gives other entrepreneurs a reason to know they can do it, too.”

Visit www.alabamalaunchpad.com for more on the competition.

Make sure to protect your intellectual property
Selvum Pillay’s winning team Innovative Composite Solutions worked closely with the UAB Research Foundation to secure disclosures, protect its intellectual property and file patent applications before the Alabama Launchpad business plan competition.

“If you think you have an invention, disclose it to us promptly — before you submit a manuscript for publication and before you address a meeting, conference, seminar or symposium. We can help,” says UABRF senior licensing associate Deborah J. Bidanset, Ph.D. The foundation also provides other services such as business development advice.

“They’ve been instrumental in helping us with the entire process,” Pillay says of the help received from the UABRF on the business plan and presentation. “They played a key role in our success.”
Contact information for the UABRF is online at www.uab.edu/uabrf.