High Risk/High Yield Research: TI-3D
Continued from Page 13
A group of forward-thinking research investigators at UT-Austin took stock
of this situation and decided to do something about it. They set out to create
an institute that would expand on the University’s strengths and resources
and create the infrastructure, provide the training, and establish the facilities
and external connections needed to carry our innovators’ ideas through to
completion. The TI-3D’s founding members are, not surprisingly, a group
of visionary researchers (five out of six are members of the Department of
Chemistry and Biochemistry) who have successfully taken their own ideas
beyond the patent stage. Eric Anslyn, Andrew Ellington, George Georgiou,
Brent Iverson, Edward Marcotte, Stephen F. Martin, and Jonathan Sessler
recognized the need for a better means of connecting and distributing the
wealth of intellectual property that they and their peers accumulate to the
greater scientific community. They came up with a plan for an organiza-
tion to better utilize and expand on the University’s existing infrastructure
of facilities and research investigators. Their plan was to create a “multi-
institution, cross-college institute whose aim is to catalyze development
of innovative drugs and medical diagnostic tools,” and to bring potential
drug and diagnostic candidates into the development stream. Their vision
and proposed plan for the Texas Institute for Drug and Diagnostic Develop-
ment was validated by the Welch Foundation with an award of $3.5 million.
As a newly formed entity, the Institute’s main focus is to encourage, and through
funding, initiate innovative interdisciplinary collaborations within the UT
system, and with Texas medical institutions by seeding high-risk, high payoff
research proposals. The results from these TI-3D funded efforts will serve as pre-
liminary results for more substantial funding from Federal and private sources.
—Angel Syrett
29
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