FUELING SPINOUTS
ONAMI Funding Speeds Collaboration

In a quiet building on Hewlett Packard Company’s sprawling Corvallis campus a short distance from the College of Engineering, an economic engine can be heard humming.

If you listen closely, you’ll notice the hum is growing louder. Soon this economic engine will be roaring, thanks to support from the Oregon legislature.

It’s the sound of commercialization being fueled by the investment of seed money in fledgling technologies under development around the state so they can evolve into new products and companies that bring prosperity to Oregon and beyond.

Oregon’s first signature research center, the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI), recently awarded more than a half million dollars in gap funding to several OSU engineering researchers to help them speed their new technologies toward commercialization. OSU chemical engineering professor Goran Jovanovic and colleagues
received ONAMI gap funding for two projects that use microchannels to improve life.

Jovanovic’s team received $175,000 to further develop a credit card sized microreactor that produces biodiesel more efficiently than traditional methods. The breakthrough is poised to revolutionize the way biodiesel is manufactured and could enable distributed production at farms and ranches, freeing farmers from reliance on fossil fuels

ONAMI awarded another $170,000 to Jovanovic and colleagues to fine tune development of a microchannel blood filter that will enable a portable kidney dialysis device. This technology is licensed to Portland startup, Home Dialysis Plus, Ltd., which is on the verge of attracting major venture capital funding that will launch production of the portable dialysis system.

Industrial and manufacturing engineering professor Brian Paul, Chih-hung Chang, a chemical engineering professor, and their colleagues received $160,000 in ONAMI gap funding to develop nanomaterials production processes using microreactors. Working with OSU chemistry professor Vince Remcho, the engineers are collaborating with investors to launch a startup company called Nanobits, LLC based on the breakthrough technology.

A number of other OSU researchers, as well as researchers from the University of Oregon, Portland State University, and other institutions, are submitting proposals to the ONAMI Commercialization Advisory Council to request gap funding for next year, when more money will be available. The Oregon legislature recently authorized $9 million in additional funding for ONAMI, $2.5 million of which will be used as gap funding.

“This type of seed funding gives Oregon researchers and entrepreneurs the support needed to attract venture capital funding and ultimately create new products, companies, and jobs,” says Skip Rung, executive director of ONAMI. “Oregon is very unique in how well our universities and our business community collaborate. ONAMI is here to foster continued collaboration and commercialization.”

ONAMI’s Corvallis headquarters also houses the Microproducts Breakthrough Institute (MBI), a joint research venture between OSU and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).

“The MBI’s mission is to accelerate the transition of micro-chemical and energy technology from conception to commercialization,” says Landis Kannberg, director of the MBI. “One element of that mission is to provide a resource for start-up companies to advance concepts first tested in a laboratory, often at OSU or PNNL.”

So keep listening... the sound of this economic engine will only grow louder. And that other sound... ? That’s applause from Oregon’s academic researchers and entrepreneurs.

Photo: Lennart Johsson and Martin Danielson (left), executives from Sweden-based renal care giant Gambro, recently visited the ONAMI headquarters on the HP campus to discuss the Home Dialysis Plus project. OSU professor Goran Jovanovic (center) and Home Dialysis Plus chemist Dalibor Smejtek look at a prototype of the microchannel blood filter.