KCOY Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo - News-Inventions and Patents are on the Rise at UCSB

Inventions and Patents are on the Rise at UCSB

06.03.09

UC SANTA BARBARA - The number of new inventions and patents coming out of UCSB's research labs is on the rise.

School staff credit UCSB's growing reputation for quality research.

"First you have to do the research, have the discovery and then you'll report it and go through the invention and patent processing," says Sherylle Mills Englander of the Office of Technology & Industry Alliances at UCSB. 

"This is a very collaborative campus," says Kevin Plaxco "That fosters interdisciplinary discoveries that are really much harder to undertake at other universities."

Plaxco is a chemistry professor and over the past 10 years, he's worked with faculty from the engineering department to create a small medical device that can detect molecules from a drop of blood of saliva without the use of a laboratory.

The university's success does not only belong to the staff as students have been involved with projects since day one and have been the real drivers in new technology.

The benefits of its discoveries reach further than the schools campus.

About 90 companies within the area began in the research labs at UCSB.

"Without the university and the university's technology being in Santa Barbara, there really would not have been a reason for a company to locate directly in the Santa Barbara area," says Englander.

About half of UCSB's projects are involved with companies interested in commercializing the ideas.