UNC-Chapel Hill:
Carolina North: Zone, development agreement approved 6/22/2009.
The Innovation Center >
Special Use Permit approved 1/26/2009.
The Carolina Innovation Center will provide an environment where innovation-based companies affiliated with the University will work to accelerate their research and development from laboratory concept to viable business. The Innovation Center will be funded, built and operated by a private developer, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., in partnership with UNC. Alexandria is a world leader in the development of technology-based business development facilities. We envision the Center as a "best-in-class" model of the new breed of technology-based business accelerator facilities, offering space, management, and seed capital to emerging high-growth technology companies.
Follow these links for more information:
Meet a few of the many scientists and entrepreneurs who could use the Innovation Center and its services:
Etta Pisano: NextRay, a company founded by radiologist Etta Pisano, could be an early tenant in the proposed Innovation Center. She and her colleagues developed Diffraction Enhanced Imaging, which uses X-ray photons through diffraction, instead of absorption, to create images. The technology uses fewer X-rays and exposes patients to much lower doses of radiation.
Dhiren Thakker: In 2001, pharmacy professors Dhiren Thakker, Kim Brouwer, and Gary Pollack founded the company Qualyst to develop technology to identify the chemical compounds most likely to succeed as drugs. Qualyst now also manufactures a patented kit for predicting how potential drugs would be cleared from the human liver. The company could be a prime tenant at the proposed Innovation Center.
Matthew Redinbo: Biochemist Matthew Redinbo founded Exigent Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 2007. He studies bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics and, through his company, hopes to discover how to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria in patients and stop the spread of E. coli, staph infections, and hospital-acquired pneumonia. Redinbo’s company could be a prime tenant in the proposed Innovation Center.
Joseph DeSimone: One early tenant in the proposed Innovation Center could be chemist Joe DeSimone, who was awarded this year’s $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize. DeSimone helped form Liquidia Technologies to commercialize PRINT(r) (Particle Replication in Non-wetting Templates) technology, which can manufacture highly customizable and controllable nanobiomaterials for the diagnosis and treatment of disease.