Columbia University has announced that it will launch anew Columbia Global Center in Tel Aviv to build on its existing collaborations in Israel and facilitate further engagement and partnerships.“The Global Centers program was created 14 years ago to create vibrant hubs of activity in intellectually rich and often challenging locations,”said Columbia President Lee C.Bollinger.“The program has become foundational to Columbia’s mission to engage with the world,offering opportunities for our faculty,students,and alumni to engage fully with colleagues and communities across the globe.”The new Center will join anetwork of centers in Amman,Athens,Beijing,Istanbul,Mumbai,Nairobi,Paris,Rio de Janeiro,Santiago,and Tunis.Similar to other centers,the Tel Aviv Center will be ahub and gathering place,enabling Columbia to connect with individuals and institutions,as well as with the alumni community in Israel,drawing them closer to the ongoing life of the University.The Center will leverage Columbia’s expertise and experience and link faculty and students to experts and resources in Israel and the wider region.Among others,the Center’s initial priorities will include climate change,technology and entrepreneurship,and aspects of arts and the humanities,as well as biological science,public health,and medicine.An additional priority will be to offer collaborative learning and research opportunities,working with peers,for Columbia undergraduates and graduate students.“I am deeply proud of how the Columbia Global Centers have evolved and grown,each with its own distinctive features and priorities and together as avibrant network advancing Columbia’s mission and values,”said Bollinger.“It is more important than ever for Columbia to continue seeking to advance inquiry and learning across borders.I look forward with anticipation as the Tel Aviv Center takes shape in the months and years ahead as part of our broader Columbia Global efforts.” 查看详细>>

Sapience Therapeutics is developing drugs to fight two deadly forms of cancer.Epibone has technology to grow custom bone grafts from apatient’s stem cells.Lumiode specializes in ultra-bright displays for augmented reality and other applications.And Vidrovr has atool for searching video on the internet.These are just afew of the innovative startups using research from Columbia’s many laboratories and nurtured by Columbia Technology Ventures,sometimes known as CTV.“When faculty and graduate students come up with new scientific inventions—therapies,diagnostics,medical devices,robotics,clean energy,cyber security,almost any kind of science done at auniversity—it’s our role to work with them and help bring those inventions into the market to become products and services that save or improve people’s lives,”said Orin Herskowitz,CTV’s executive director and senior vice president for intellectual property and technology transfer.Columbia Technology Ventures was founded in 1982,shortly after Congress passed legislation mandating that universities retain title to ground-breaking research developed with federal funding,seek patents for those inventions and license those patents to industry and startups.Since Herskowitz came to Columbia in 2006,the tech ventures office has grown exponentially,helping to create 20 to 25 startups annually compared with five or six adecade ago.Each year it evaluates more than 350 innovations from faculty,students and researchers working in aColumbia lab for potential commercialization,including patents and licensing deals.Technology Ventures works with faculty across Columbia’s campuses to identify new scientific breakthroughs.Once they find an invention with significant commercial potential,the principal investigator is paired with aCTV licensing expert,who stays in touch to determine when the invention can be patented and licensed or presented to investors for astartup.Some researchers contact the tech ventures office with potential ideas.“It is atrue partnership between the academic research faculty,the investment community and our office,”said Ofra Weinberger,Columbia Technology Ventures’director of licensing.“We take on much of the brainstorming,the marketing,looking for the best partners and bringing in entrepreneurs so our faculty members and investigators can be better informed about the needs and pressures of the marketplace.”In addition to traditional licensing efforts,Columbia runs or co-runs five“lab-to-market accelerators”—three in life sciences,one in clean energy and another in media and communications technology—giving inventors access to industry mentors and some funding as they learn about starting acompany,pitching to investors and proving that their product works.The clean energy program is aNew York State-funded collaboration with Brookhaven National Laboratory,City University of New York,Cornell Tech,New York University and Stony Brook University.NYU and the City of New York are participants with Columbia in the media technology program. 查看详细>>