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May 25, 2006

TGIF awards given to help develop technology

UW TechTransfer has announced the recipients of the first round of this year’s Technology Gap Innovation Fund (TGIF) awards.


The TGIF is a Royalty Research Fund that sponsors UW researchers to develop their leading-edge technologies, which are chosen for their strong commercial potential. The funding provided by the TGIF supports additional research and prototype development to enhance the commercial prospects of projects.


Five diverse and innovative projects were awarded:



  • Blake Hannaford of electrical engineering and Anuja Bhandari of ophthalmology were awarded TGIF funds to develop software for and improve the design of a low-cost eye surgery simulator. The simulator will assess learned skills of new surgeons and provide the “feel” of actual surgery, while costing thousands less than current simulators on the market.
  • Chunye Xu and Minoru Taya of mechanical engineering will use TGIF funds to develop and optimize prototypes of sunglasses, helmet face shields, and goggles employing electrochromic polymers. This alternative approach to currently available technology permits lenses that can change from light to dark in less than a second, are available in different colors, and can be manufactured using inexpensive materials.
  • Randal Ching and colleagues in mechanical engineering, and David Haynor and Yangqiu Hu of radiology will use the TGIF award to the fund formal usability studies and collect data on the benefits of their Patient-Specific Models, 3-D anatomically accurate plastic prototypes that allow surgeons to “see and feel” the part of the body they will work on before going into the operating room. The models are created much faster (within 24 hours), and with higher manufacturing quality than similar commercially available products.
  • Shaoyi Jiang of chemical engineering was awarded TGIF funds to develop and test a marine coating paint made with highly effective antimicrobial compounds. The compounds are non-toxic and would replace metal-based paints that are harmful to marine environments. The paint would be used to coat marine vessels, but may also be developed for medical implants and other uses.
  • Ram Samudrala of microbiology will apply TGIF funds to the in vivo testing of a compound that has been shown to be effective against all three classes of herpes virus in the laboratory. The compound fights the virus in a novel way, which is important as the herpes virus is developing resistance to drugs currently on the market.


For more information on the TGIF, visit http://depts.washington.edu/techtran/tt/TGIF/.


UW TechTransfer facilitates the commercialization of new innovations arising from UW research through the management and licensing of intellectual property.