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Last year, the University of Minnesota earned more than $56 million from commercializing technologies developed by its faculty and researchers. In April, Jay Schrankler (B.S. ’88) became the new executive director of the University’s Office for Technology Commercialization. Schrankler, who came to the University after a 25-year career with Honeywell, spoke with Minnesota magazine about the need for the U to revitalize the processes that take innovations from the laboratory into the marketplace.

Q: What’s driving the
effort to revitalize the U’s technology commercialization?

A: If you look at research funding for universities in general, it’s becoming more difficult to get federal funds. And state funding is on the decline in almost every instance. So the question becomes, where does the University turn to for research dollars? Well, by commercializing its technology.

Q: What is the status of the AIDS drug Ziagen developed at the U that accounts for the lion’s share of licensing revenue?

A: That is the burning issue here because the patents start to expire in a few years. So within 5 or 6 years it’s going off patent and we’ll be down to almost nothing from that license. And so the imperative I have is what’s going to happen when the [money from the licensing of Ziagen to] Glaxo starts to decline? We’ve got to build up our other bases.

Q: What areas are ripe for commercialization?

A: The opportunities are everywhere. Health care is very strong, biomedical and pharmaceutical, and the U is very strong in plants and agriculture. This year, for instance, about 20 percent of our income [derived from commercialization], not counting income from Ziagen, comes from the Honeycrisp apple license.

Q: So you need to always have something in the pipeline.

A: Yes. It takes a minimum of about 3 years from the time you license something until you start to see income.

Q: What challenges  
do you face?

A: One thing we’ve got to improve here is our responsiveness to faculty. Our new process will be a big help—we’re doubling the number of people who work with faculty. There will be six technology strategy managers dedicated to doing the analysis, working closely with faculty and researchers to assess their innovations. Historically, universities, under the public-good domain, have just patented everything, and there’s a huge expenditure for patenting. Huge. A patent can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000. So if you think about the U doing 50-some patents a year, that’s a lot of money. We’ve got to become more value-based, which means more judicious. We have to ask, does it really have value in the market?

Q: How much untapped potential is here?

A: I would say it’s significant untapped potential, but it’s going to take a lot of work to get there and get it out of the U. We need to look at this more like a business; we’re located in the University Enterprise Laboratories so that when people come here, we look like we’re a business, and that’s how we act. The fun part of the job for me is seeing the huge number of innovations that come out of here. I feel like a kid in a candy store, I really do.

 —Cynthia Scott

Animal welfare proponents have a lot to crow about in the University’s decision to stop buying eggs from factory farms that keep their hens penned in tiny cages. University Dining Services announced in April that it switched to serving cage-free eggs in all residential dining halls. The new policy applies to the approximately 2,900 pounds per week of liquid eggs consumed, which account for a majority of eggs the school serves. A statement by the University Dining Service noted that moving to cage-free eggs is consistent with its overall goal to provide a more sustainable food system on campus by recognizing customers’ desire for more humane treatment of animals raised for consumption. Factory farming practices that confine hens in small, crowded cages have come under increasing scrutiny from colleges and universities. The University of Minnesota is the fifth institution of higher education in Minnesota to implement the change.

The East Bank lost a century-old landmark in May when the Harvard Market closed, a victim of rising expenses and falling profits. Located in Stadium Village at the corner of Harvard Street and Washington Avenue Southeast, the grocery store’s 1 a.m. closing time (2 a.m. on Saturdays) made it a go-to spot for late night snacks for generations of students and area residents. It first opened in 1904. Harvard Market East, a larger store three blocks away, remains open.

Harvard Market is the second East Bank mainstay to close in recent months. Last fall, Enrica Fish Medical Bookstore closed when owner Enrica Fish retired. The independent bookstore, located three blocks from the shuttered Harvard Market on Washington Avenue, served medical students for more than 25 years.

Should the University of Minnesota go smoke-free? That question is being debated quietly at Boynton Health Service and is likely to become part of a wider campus discussion in coming months. Discussions on the possibility of a campus-wide ban began within the Healthy Campus Tobacco Free Network, a consortium of post-secondary institutions coordinated by Boynton Health Service that is dedicated to tobacco cessation efforts at educational institutions in the Twin Cities. Dr. Ed Ehlinger, director of Boynton Health Service, raised the possibility of a campus-wide ban at the U of M after Minnesota State University–Moorhead passed a ban that will prohibit the use and sale of all tobacco products on University-owned, operated, or leased property beginning in 2008. MSU–Moorhead is one of a growing number of college campuses that have banned or are considering banning tobacco use. The other spur to discussions on the U campus was the passage of a statewide smoking ban by the Minnesota legislature in 2007. That measure, which takes effect in October, prohibits smoking in all bars and restaurants in the state but does not affect outdoor areas, as a campus-wide ban would.

Smoking in campus facilities has been prohibited since 1993, and smokers are also banned from smoking within 25 feet of building entrances. Two years ago, the sale of tobacco products at Coffman Union and other University venues was banned. Those measures are in keeping with what Maria Rangel, coordinator of the Healthy Campus Network, called a “progressive movement” to prohibit tobacco use on campus. That is, as more data has become known about the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke, progressively more restrictive policies have been put in place to discourage its use. Rangel said the Network’s goal is to have zero students who use tobacco.

CareerPath is a new online career management tool from the College of Continuing Education that helps users assess their current career path and envision new possibilities. Among the site’s features are: a “visual résumé” that helps users see their skills, experiences, and background in a new way; the ability to view other people’s career histories; a tool that allows users to examine specific aspects of their work life; personal networking areas; and links to University of Minnesota Career and Lifework resources, including workshops and personal consultations. CareerPath is free for all users. Access it at www.cce.umn.edu/path.

“Did he really need to be given the opportunity to have the last word?”

—Linda Walker, mother of murdered University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin, reflecting on the media’s coverage of the perpetrator of the Viriginia Tech slayings, during a Silha Center Forum at the University this spring.

Image Gallery: Degrees of Exhilaration
Spring 2007 commencements in pictures Photographs by Patrick O’Leary