News

On March 19, TLA held its fifth annual I-Squared Expo & Awards, honoring those whose work impacts the quality of life for people in Tucson, across Arizona and throughout the world through research, invention, collaboration and commercialization.

The UA has named Douglas Hockstad to fill the position held by David Allen, effective April 28, 2018. Allen, who is retiring, was appointed as TLA vice president in 2012 to reinvigorate the UA’s research commercialization activities.

A team of researchers at the UA College of Optical Sciences have invented a new breed of spectrometer capable of rapidly analyzing the chemical makeup of materials. Their first target market? Natural products and pharmaceuticals, including cannabis.

Urbix Resources has licensed a portfolio of lithium-ion battery and related materials technologies invented at the UA. Dr. Palash Gangopadhyay, inventor and formerly an adjunct research professor at the UA College of Optical Sciences, is now the full-time CTO at Urbix.

Startup GUIA has licensed a mining communication and sensor platform developed in the College of Engineering and Lowell Institute for Mineral Resources. In addition to mining, the company is looking to apply the technology to other high-risk environments.

In collaboration with the College of Science, TLA has hired Laura Silva as the licensing manager for the college. She will be working with faculty, researchers and graduate students to identify, protect and commercialize inventions stemming from research at the college.

Dr. Roger Angel, Regents’ Professor at the University of Arizona, has been named as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors for his many contributions, from telescope mirror design to his ideas around sustainable energy.

For a researcher, developing a holistic understanding of a field is an immense task. UA inventors have devised an automated system to extract information from literature and generate easily interpretable answers. Now, the UA has licensed it to their startup, Lum.AI.

The goal of commercialization is to get the products of research out into the world for the public good. Asset Development funding helps develop early-stage technologies and make them more attractive for market adoption. The program is generating opportunities – and results.

UA Associate Vice President Bruce Wright received the COO/Leadership Equivalent Award for a non-profit organization during the 2017 Executive Excellence Award presented by Tucson Local Media and Inside Tucson Business.

Download the FY2017 Annual Report and review our progress against our 2020 vision and our metrics, the achievements of Tech Parks Arizona, and the big picture of the growth of the culture of commercialization throughout the University of Arizona ecosystem.

At a time when opioid addiction represents a major public health crisis, researchers in the UA College of Medicine – Tucson have invented a new class of non-opioid drug candidates to treat pain. The University has licensed the compounds to startup Regulonix.