For our 10th anniversary, we interviewed Sadhana Ravishankar of the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences. TLA has played a central role in her work and helped her launch startup Phytocentric Solutions to commercialize a non-toxic sanitizer developed in her laboratory. She has been selected as TLA Inventor of the Year and is a great advocate for commercialization and creating impact from research all around campus.
TLA has been a very valuable partner in every stage of the process, and they made sure that it all happened for me. I didn't know anything and it was a really long road, but they were able to help me cross that long road with much ease, and it all magically happened. –Sadhana Ravishankar
Return to 10th anniversary videos
Transcript
TLA played a very important role in educating the university community about the importance of intellectual property protection, commercialization, and entrepreneurship. They had a number of educational sessions, workshops, trainings… They brought in their team of experts and I happen to attend many of these trainings, and that gave me a good amount of education about what actually data protection is. It really helped me in gathering all the information and finding suitable industry partners.
I've been able to understand what the needs of the industry are, what are the needs of the scientific community what are, the needs of the general public, and I have been able to focus my research into solving issues faced by the industry, solving issues faced by the scientific community, and by the general public, as well.
TLA has been a very valuable partner in every stage of the process, and they made sure that it all happened for me. I didn't know anything and it was a really long road, but they were able to help me cross that long road with much ease, and it all magically happened.
So it's been a very long journey and I hope to continue to work with TLA. I love working with them because I've learned a lot and now I'm educating my students about it, even my graduate students (and) my undergraduates. Because I felt like when I grew up as a graduate student, none of this was told to me. I feel that if I educate my graduate students and even my undergraduates, now they will be able to learn about all this at an early stage, and they can protect their data better.
I think all colleges and units within these colleges should definitely go for these options of asking TLA to come give lectures to these students. I think it will be very valuable for them.
My graduate students themselves have told me that they are getting an all-round experience in my lab. Many of them when I talk to them they will be, like, “You know many labs don't do this. You involve us in outreach. You involve us in working with TLA.”
They had an event to celebrate women and I brought all my female graduate students. To them that was a new experience and they said they were able to learn something new that day.
It may seem like a long road, but TLA is going to help you in every stage of the process.
If you have an idea and you want to bring it to marketplace, definitely, definitely involve TLA from the beginning and they will help you to commercialization and beyond. That is happening in our case. They continue to help, and you can do it with TLA’s help.
The only thing I would say to the scientific community, the faculty members is: Do not keep your idea within the four walls of your lab. It needs to reach the intended beneficiaries, the intended audience. And the one major, one important way to do that is to have a partnership with TLA, which would be very valuable for them. And they should definitely avail this opportunity available at the University of Arizona. And do not miss it!