UPR Center for Incubator and Technology Transfer (UPRCITT)

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UPR Center for Incubator and Technology Transfer (UPRCITT) We propose establishing the UPR Center for Incubator and Technology Transfer (UPRCITT) at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) for entrepreneurial collaborative scientific research across multiple disciplines. In our endeavors for the UPRCITT, we will fit out an entire floor (20,000 ft2) in our eight-story UPR Molecular Sciences Research Center (MSRC), in the heart of San Juan, Puerto Rico (PR). With the establishment of the MSRC, the UPR has sought to foster an innovative and technologically driven economy that will generate businesses and jobs in PR (manufacturing or otherwise). Situating the UPRCITT in the MSRC would go a long way toward making this a reality. The UPRCITT floor would provide future collaborators with access to many of the Island’s best scientists, as well as much of the most sophisticated instrumentation available; and our GLP-compliant animal facilities. Furthermore, scientists accepted into the incubator space will have the opportunity of interacting within multidisciplinary research groups currently conducting research in nanotechnology, chemistry, biosensors, vaccine development, cell biology, natural products, structural biology, and other areas. The MSRC's ongoing efforts will provide leverage to the UPRCITT in attracting new researchers, small businesses, and Biotech and Pharmaceutical collaborators. An example of this being the creation of the Clinical Bioreagent Center (CBC), an NIH-NINDS-funded collaboration between UPR and local Biotech companies in PR for the development of a prophylactic HIV vaccine, and other new start-ups. The UPRCITT floor will include GLP/cGMP research facilities as well as flexible laboratory spaces for transitioning basic research concepts into pilot commercial projects. These projects could flourish for a time within the MSRC while de-risking the technology. The main goals of the UPRCITT are: (1) to enhance PR’s economic development by founding an innovation ecosystem that will stimulate the creation and incubation of start-up companies by providing cGMP state-of-the-art laboratories and CORE facilities, (2) to promote collaborations among Biotech and Pharmaceutical companies and UPR researchers, and (3) to provide workforce development by training for faculty, underrepresented undergraduate/graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to work in teams in an innovation ecosystem which will promote the culture of entrepreneurship in PR. The UPRCITT will promote PR's economic development in three ways: (1) Research conducted in these facilities will be critical to PR's economic development, in terms of both job creation on the island and spinoff projects that could be licensed and commercialized nationally. (2) The cGMP facilities will be used to form strategic alliances with industry, provide services to industry, and assist in capitalizing on new discoveries both within and outside of PR. (3) The facility will serve as an entrepreneurship and innovation training facility for underrepresented students aspiring to join the US scientific workforce. This application represents an unprecedented transformation in the UPR's research enterprise that will propel scientific discoveries into commercialization and economic growth.