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Bay area growth in SRI's sights

The biotech company may expand its aging and drug development work here.

By KRIS HUNDLEY, Times Staff Writer
Published October 24, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT SRI's Alex Beavers said the California company could expand here if the right partners are found.

TAMPA - Less than a year after opening a campus in St. Petersburg, SRI International of Menlo Park, Calif., is already considering bringing two more research efforts to the area.

Alex Beavers, who oversees commercialization of new technologies at SRI, told investors at a Florida Venture Forum breakfast Tuesday that the institute's work on aging and drug development could expand to the Tampa Bay area if the right partners are found.

"We have to do the groundwork, but we hope to expand here," he said. SRI's Center for Research on Independent Aging does work on social and economic issues related to aging. Its PharmaSTART operation works with medical researchers at four California universities to speed their drug compounds' path to market.

SRI, founded in 1946 as part of Stanford University, jump-started its St. Petersburg operation in January with $30-million in public funds and about 20 researchers hired from the University of South Florida's Center for Ocean Technology. The group is housed in temporary quarters on USF's campus while awaiting completion of a 40,000-square-foot lab on St. Petersburg's waterfront.

SRI's Florida branch has focused on marine research, maritime security, nanotechnology, energy and biomedical applications. Beavers said cross-pollination is already occurring between SRI's campuses. An artificial muscle developed by SRI in California is being used on an apparatus developed here that captures energy from wave power.

SRI's voice-recognition technology has also been licensed by a Tampa company, Electronic Learning Products, which uses singing to help kids learn to read.

Beavers, an electrical engineer who previously ran an SRI spin-off commercializing the artificial muscle material, said it will probably be a couple of years before research at the St. Petersburg campus leads to new companies.

Describing the arduous process of moving technology from the lab to the marketplace, Beavers said timing is critical.

Twenty-five years ago, he noted, SRI developed a technology to produce silicon that was pure enough for solar cells but not good enough for the silicon wafers used in computing. At the time, there was little demand for solar cells. Today, demand for solar cells is soaring and SRI has signed four licenses.

"It's often a case of being at the right place at the right time," Beavers said.

Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com (727) 892-2996.

[Last modified October 23, 2007, 23:04:17]