UCLA center announces student winners of first 'business venture in science' competition

WHAT:            

The UCLA Business of Science Center mentors and educates medical, science and business students in creating business ventures in technology and science, helping them apply what they learn in the classroom and laboratory to real-life inventions and innovations developed at UCLA. 

 

The center will celebrate its one-year anniversary and present awards to the winners of its inaugural Venture Team Competition. During this five-month competition, small groups of students worked with industry mentors and a faculty inventor to evaluate the market potential of a UCLA innovation. Last week, the teams presented their pitches for funding to a panel of expert judges.

 

The two winning teams will each receive $20,000 to take their business ventures to the next level. The competition is sponsored by the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute and Perkins Coie, an international law firm that represents companies at all stages of growth, from start-ups to Fortune 100 corporations. 

 

The event will also feature key speakers including:

 

Ouchi, the Sigoloff Distinguished Professor of Corporate Renewal at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, will present and lead a discussion about how to create a culture of entrepreneurship on campus and how universities can enhance intellectual property development and effectively transfer innovations to the next level.

 

Dubinett, director of the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute, associate vice chancellor for translational science, and chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, will discuss how the integration of people and processes needed to develop new treatments, methodologies and technologies is changing the way medical research is performed and providing for better overall outcomes.

 

Doumani, executive director of the UCLA Business of Science Center and a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine, will moderate an open forum. He has been involved in the formation, capitalization and operation of numerous businesses in health services, technology, biotechnology and finance.