Biology assistant professor Carl Bergstrom never thought he and the UW Technology Transfer office would have a common interest.

Bergstrom traces where citations in scientific journals come from and uses that information to rate those scholarly journals. He wanted to keep the methods he developed transparent and readily available to the public. He thought Tech Transfer would make his research secret.

But unlike most technology transfer offices, the one at the UW doesn’t just help researchers get patents for their work; it works with projects that do not result in patents as well, like Bergstrom’s research.

Bergstrom first came into contact with Tech Transfer when several companies approached him and wanted to use his data, said Alan Yen, a software technology manager at Tech Transfer.

“What we wanted to help him with was to enhance his reputation as a researcher and enhance the reputation of his research,” Yen said.

It is this element of Technology Transfer that makes the UW organization difficult to define. Its employees emphasize that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to working with the projects that come into the office.

Tech Transfer uses a variety of intellectual property and business tools and works on a personal level with researchers to connect them to the investment community and ensure that their intellectual property rights are properly managed, wrote Lori Seabright, communications manager at Tech Transfer, in an e-mail.

Washington researchers, including a significant number of graduate students, turn to Tech Transfer for help with the business side of research.

“I think that what we do is help the University community by looking out for them and making sure that nothing strange goes on [in their efforts to transfer technology],” Yen said.

Tech Transfer is looking for ways to work with researchers at earlier stages of their work, allowing them to meet with members of the business community early so they know ahead of time what will be marketable, said Linden Rhoads, vice provost for Tech Transfer.

This is not to say the needs of the business community dictate the direction of the research, said Fiona Wills, director of invention licensing at Tech Transfer. But it can be helpful if details that seem unimportant to a researcher turn out to be crucial to an investor, she added.

“If we’re in there at the beginning, we can point out things that would likely go wrong or right [in commercialization],” Wills said.

Ben Hall, professor emeritus of biology at the UW, believes the motive behind Tech Transfer’s new development is a good one, since it is important for researchers to be more involved in deciding how their product will be used.

However, he hopes Tech Transfer will be able to exercise discretion in choosing which inventions to commercialize.

Professors put pressure on Tech Transfer regarding patents, and as Tech Transfer is part of the University, it may have difficulty resisting this pressure, Hall said.

“When professors make inventions, they rap on the door and say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to give me my patent,’” he said. “Sometimes you need to do more screening.”

The vast majority of projects result in little revenue, but every once in a while, UW researchers come up with something that is highly profitable, Rhoads said. These innovations are known as “big hits.”

Hall’s research on developing yeast as a system that could be used for a hepatitis B vaccine constituted an enormous hit for the UW. Although Hall’s research was patented before the Tech Transfer office existed, the revenues from the patents are vital to the organization.

Within five years, Hall’s patents will expire. Due to changes in the structure of industry and the fact that biotechnology is now a mature field, there are fewer opportunities for the UW to achieve big hits in that area than there were 25 years ago, Hall said.

However, Wills added that UW Tech Transfer is not focused on big hits.

Along with faculty, a large number of graduate students make use of the Tech Transfer office, since they are often the ones who feel their future will be tied up in the outcome of their research, Wills said.

“You should really utilize the resources you have at the University,” Seabright said. “Once you get outside of the University, you’re out in the rat race with everybody else.”

Reach contributing writer Robin Kallsen at development@dailyuw.com.