As the fall and winter seasons progress, you may be attending more scientific conferences, where you may find a number of opportunities for research collaborations. To assist your lab in reaching its research goals through collaborations, the staff of the National Cancer Institute Technology Transfer Center can guide you through a tool box of agreements you may need for protecting your intellectual property and effectively managing your collaboration.

Patents provide a period of exclusivity and are a way to exclude others from making, using, or selling an inventor’s novel technology. For the National Institutes of Health (NIH), patents are an incentive for an outside party to license, develop, and commercialize NIH technologies that will benefit public health, especially those that require substantial further development by an outside party, such as therapeutics and diagnostics.

The National Cancer Institute’s Technology Transfer Center recently launched a redesign of its website. New graphics, color scheme, and updated features provide a user-friendly environment for finding information related to technology transfer at NCI.

Advancing scientific discovery is increasingly dependent on diverse and innovative partnerships, and the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) is an essential tool for establishing partnerships. CRADAs allow a federal laboratory to enter into collaborative research and development projects with outside parties (commercial or nonprofit).

The physical proximity of the SAIC-Frederick Intellectual Property (IP) Office to the NCI Technology Transfer Center is one of the many benefits of being at the Advanced Technology Research Facility, according to Courtney Silverthorn, Ph.D. Being in one location “has increased the effectiveness of both informal communication and formal meetings. We have already brainstormed solutions for several issues in the hallway during an informal chat,” said Silverthorn, an SAIC-Frederick IP specialist.