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Big ideas from USF center attract attention

Innovative work at the College of Marine Science may help entice a California research institute to St. Petersburg.

By ANITA KUMAR, CRAIG PITTMAN and JAMES THORNER
Published February 4, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - At a small breakfast meeting two weeks ago, Pinellas County officials tried to sell a prestigious scientific institute on the idea of opening a high technology research facility near downtown.

Among those invited was Ocean Optics, a Dunedin company that has built a $40-million-a-year business from technology developed at the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

It is but one example of how several local people and businesses have quietly come together to lure SRI International, a Silicon Valley scientific institution founded by Stanford University.

While no deal has been reached, negotiations have stepped up, and a key selling point is the College of Marine Science on the city's waterfront.

SRI's scientists are intrigued by the college's work on micro and nanotechnology sensors, which sprang from underwater research but can be adapted to medical or automotive fields, among others.

"I think it was just a matter of, "Oh, this is interesting - we do similar things to what you're doing,' " said Carol Steele, business development manager of the college's Center for Ocean Technology. "That was the way in which the first interest in discussions took place."

Since it was established almost four decades ago, the marine science program has flourished in size and prestige.

The department, which became a college in 2000, has 65 faculty members and researchers and more than 100 students. It has some undergraduate classes but offers only master's and doctoral degrees.

"They're well-respected," said Rob Young, chairman of the marine science department at Coastal Carolina University, which sends its students to USF for graduate degrees. "They're a well-established, strong program."

Much of the credit is given to Peter Betzer, who started at the department in 1971 and was sooned appointed chairman and later dean. He has overseen the creation of a major marine science complex.

Betzer, who has led the SRI proposal, said this week he couldn't talk about any deal because of a confidentiality agreement.

The college's Center for Ocean Technology, which opened in 1994, has grown from five employees to 85 in just 12 years.

It spent millions of tax dollars helping the Navy detect mines and battle terrorists. The devices the center designed also have yielded bonuses for law enforcement, meteorologists and marine scientists.

Devices built by the center and attached to a buoy 35 miles off the coast of Sarasota transmit crucial weather data to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. State scientists use sensors created by the center to watch for blooms of noxious Red Tide in the Gulf of Mexico.

Another device built by the center's engineers was designed to monitor whether ultraviolet radiation is damaging South Florida's coral reefs. It was supposed to sit on the ocean floor for a month.

The center has become so well known for its microtechnology work that in August it will host an international conference on the commercialization of micro and nanotechnology, a growing field focused on miniature systems. The conference is expected to attract 300 people to St. Petersburg.

"We make every effort to commercialize the things we create in the center," Steele said.

So far, though, there has been "precious little" interest from the business community in the center's discoveries, she said. In the past five years, only two inventions have been commercially licensed.

The center first attracted SRI's attention at a convention in Texas in the spring of 2004. At a gathering sponsored by the Association of University Technology Managers, engineers at USF's center met SRI scientists and began comparing notes.

SRI, based in Menlo Park, Calif., is best known for having its research used in private companies and has had a hand in many of the major technological innovations of the past century. It has worked with only one university, the University of Arizona.

That project, known as C-Path, is an attempt to bring life-saving medicines to market sooner. It opened two months ago in Tucson, in conjunction with the university and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Each of the three founding partners pledged $3.75-million.

Its 2,500-square-foot office holds fewer than 10 employees, some of them medical doctors.

By comparison, Pinellas officials hope for far more high-paying jobs from their SRI proposal.

"It's an exciting opportunity because it brings high-wage technology-related jobs," said Assistant Pinellas County Administrator Mark Woodard.

SRI conducts tests on the ability of radar to detect underwater explosives. Similar studies are conducted at the College of Marine Science.

Another common interest of both SRI and USF's College of Marine Science is in homeland security.

USF researchers are using microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS technology, to develop underwater sensors. Those sensors could be used to make piers and underwater portions of ships more secure.

SRI has extensive governmental ties in developing high-tech systems to combat terrorism.

"SRI takes good ideas and finds a commercial market for them," said Harry Glenn, chief of staff to Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores. "They look at the technology and see exciting commercial possibilities."

SRI spokeswoman Ellie Javadi declined to talk about USF but said the company has no formula for pairing up with partners.

Sometimes, SRI and its partner maintain separate testing centers in their respective home cities.

Other times, as in the case of Tucson, the partners create a new entity from scratch and get startup money from local, state and federal agencies.

"It's a case-by-case basis with every partnership and the needs of that partnership," Javadi said.

SRI has been in discussion for several months with the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists that owns the St. Petersburg Times, said Poynter president Karen Brown Dunlap. Poynter owns land across from the Salvador Dali Museum.

In an e-mail to the campus Friday, USF St. Petersburg Chancellor Karen White said SRI would not consider the museum site itself. That land is for campus expansion, she said.

The museum will move to the the site formerly occupied by the Bayfront Center.

Times researchers Angie Drobnic Holan and Cathy Wos contributed to this report.

Accomplishments of the Center for Ocean Technology:

Ship hull scanning hardware developed for the Coast Guard that can be used for port security around the world.

Advanced thin film technology funded by General Dynamics that has military applications.

World's first underwater mass spectrometer developed for and sold by Applied Microsystems Ltd. of British Columbia.

Maskless micropatterning system developed for Intelligent Micropatterning, produced in St. Petersburg and sold worldwide.

[Last modified February 4, 2006, 00:33:08]