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Roy Jensen and others at event which announced the beginning of testing of Nanotax

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This artist's rendering shows what the proposed Lawrence Regional Life Sciences Incubator, a KU and community partnership, will look like.

Incubator to help launch life science businesses

Plans were unveiled in June for a Lawrence Regional Life Sciences Incubator, a university and community partnership. A facility be built in 2009-10 on KU's West Campus.

The $8 million project will make 20,000 square feet of wet-lab space available to university start-up companies and other firms in the early stages of development. The proposed two-story facility will have the potential to expand to 40,000 square feet and will be located on Becker Drive, across from the Multidisciplinary Research Building and the Structural Biology Center.

Under the proposal, one-fourth of the total funding will be provided by the Lawrence-Douglas County Bioscience Authority, the City of Lawrence and Douglas County. The Authority will own the building and the Lawrence Regional Technology Center will manage it. One-fourth of the total funding, $1.5 million, will be provided by KU and KU Endowment, $500,000 of which will come from a long-term lease of the land. Matching funds for these commitments will be sought from the Kansas Bioscience Authority.

More than 1,200 business incubators of all kinds operate currently in the United States. They provide space and program support at a moderate cost, enabling entrepreneurs to prove a concept, advance product research and development and, ideally, graduate into a larger facility.

The proposed Lawrence incubator is seen as an important part of an overall economic development strategy for the community. The goals are to increase research collaborations with KU; commercialize KU technology and create spin-off companies; recruit and retain companies locally; recruit and retain KU faculty; and generate jobs, investment and a larger local tax base.

Plans are also under way to establish a Biomedical Entrepreneurial Research Incubator at the KU Medical Center. The 40,000 square foot, $6.25 million facility will be located in the Breidenthal Research Building. Funding will be provided by the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration —$3 million — and the Kansas Bioscience Authority — $2 million. Completion is expected in 2010.

KU HISTORY:

Time magazine took note of KU's aspirations of greatness in an article on July 16, 1951. In a piece about the departing Chancellor Deane W. Malott and his replacement, KU Medical Center Dean Franklin D. Murphy, the magazine wrote, "In the last 12 years, KU has begun to climb from its place as a solid but unspectacular state university ... Under Chancellor Murphy, it hopes to climb even faster." For more, see www.kuhistory.com.