Feature Stories:

>>USF Scientists Mean Business
>>Fueling Change
>>Scholarly Pursuits

Related Links:

News at USF
USF Alumni Association
University Relations

Send this Article to a Friend

Please direct questions about the magazine or this Web page to Anne Scott.

By Michael Reich
Photography by Jason Marsh

USF's new biotechnology and life sciences research park will provide a vital link between scientists and entrepreneurs, creating vital infrastructure for a powerful high-technology business cluster that will create high-tech businesses and jobs in Tampa Bay.

USF's new biotechnology and life sciences research park will support researchers like Dr. Paul Sanberg as they launch new technologies from the laboratory to the marketplace.

President Judy Genshaft looks over sketches for the first phase of her plan to develop USF's 87-acre research park into a hub for biotechnology and life sciences research and entrepreneurship.

Two buildings, side by side. More than 230,000 square feet of space. Offices on this floor. Labs on that floor. The Center for Biological Defense on the top floor in this building. A place for robots down on the first floor of that building.

On paper, they merely look like static renderings for two buildings that will grace the front of campus.

But in her mind's eye, the buildings are alive and bustling with activity. Entrepreneurs and scientists stop and chat in the hallways. They brainstorm and hash out elaborate high-tech business plans over coffee. They poke their heads into laboratories and offices for a quick answer to what could be a deal-making or -breaking question. Throughout each day, they go back and forth between laboratories and conference rooms hammering out the details that are the difference between scrubbing an idea for another day or moving forward with the big launch. Eventually, ideas in the laboratory become businesses in the marketplaces. Small businesses become big businesses. And the Tampa Bay area's economy grows and prospers with an ever-growing hub of biotech and life science businesses.

For Genshaft, this isn't just another hope or dream of high-tech economic development. It's a vision that's alive and real. And with the renderings in front of her, it's a vision she's making a reality at USF.

"I know how to build this," she said. "If we focus on our strengths, if we put the infrastructure in place, we will succeed."

The State University of New York at Albany, where Genshaft served as provost, has had tremendous success since it won a state grant to build a Center for Advanced Thin Film Technology in 1993. In 1995, the university broke ground on a facility similar to the one planned at USF. Albany's interdisciplinary research center and business incubator opened in 1997 and combined research and office space for corporate partners and university start-up businesses. It was the first of three buildings that would ultimately be built. Albany then bought a former pharmaceutical plant and opened yet another business incubator.

President Judy Genshaft has a clear vision for nuturing biotech at USF's research park.

The region and the state rallied around the high-tech focus. Then came a series of massive investments in the university's high-tech research and entrepreneurship: In April 2001, IBM pledged $100-million to support Albany's research. In July 2002, Sematech decided to build a $403-million research-and-development center at the university. In November 2002, Tokyo Electron agreed to build a $300,000 million research-and-development center at the university. All of this added up to massive high-tech economic development in upstate New York.

Genshaft wants to repeat that success at USF. At a Tampa Bay Partnership retreat in June, she announced that USF would break ground by the end of the year on two buildings in the park that will add more than 230,000 square feet for laboratories and offices for corporate partners. The $40-million project will also house an expanded 30,000-square-foot business incubator and the Center for Biological Defense.

As was the case for Albany, USF's research park is a critical piece in the elaborate mosaic of high-tech economic development for the Tampa Bay region. While a number of people and organizations have successfully put in place many pieces of the mosaic, there has not been a mechanism that systematically links USF researchers to businesses in need of research partners. USF's research park will supply this vital missing piece.

Even before Genshaft arrived at USF, she had already identified biotechnology and life sciences as research strengths for the university and envisioned developing the research park. She saw strong research programs in medicine, engineering and the basic sciences. She envisioned maximizing the partnerships USF already established with medical partners such as the Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa General, All Children's and the James A. Haley Veteran's Hospital.

As she examined the strengths within USF, Genshaft also explored the existing high-tech strengths within the Tampa Bay business community. She saw that the Bay area was home to more than 370 medical device businesses that contribute about 51,000 jobs and more than $5 billion annually to the region's economy.

And the region's economic development organizations were eager for USF to take the lead. In October 2002, the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce led an exploratory trip to Baltimore to learn how Johns Hopkins University had helped that region become a successful high-tech hub. On the bus ride back to the airport after a day of meetings and tours, Genshaft stood and gave the group a new mantra.

"Biotechnology and life sciences... Biotechnology and life sciences..." she chanted. The group followed her lead, chanting with her at the time, then returning to the Tampa Bay area with a sharper focus than ever before. If there was any mistake about it previously, the trip solidified the partnership between USF, the business community and economic development officials. They were in this together.

Additionally, as USF quietly planned the development of the research park, the university publicly fought for a $10-million grant from the state to build a Center of Excellence in Bioengineering and Life Sciences. The business community rallied around USF's proposal. And the medical manufacturing industry, which Genshaft considered among USF's most important partners in the biotech and life sciences bid, were integrally involved in developing the proposal - even to the point of co-presenting the proposal to the state granting agency. Ultimately, USF didn't get win that grant, but something happened that was probably even more important than any single pot of money: The partnership between USF and the medical manufacturing community had reached new heights. They, too, were in this together.

For Genshaft's part, she was so undeterred by not getting the state grant that it almost seemed she didn't notice the setback. Without skipping a beat, she said, "We're moving forward anyway."

Privately, Genshaft was just as adamant with USF's business, research and economic development leadership. "Focus," she told them again and again. "This is our number one priority. We have to focus, focus, focus."

And focus they did. USF hired Carter & Associates, a firm that had built similar facilities at Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia. Scientists, architects and industry representatives hammered out the details for the buildings' infrastructure. USF's finance team put together a creative package that leveraged private money from the USF Foundation with research dollars from the colleges, government partners and a bond issue that would allow USF to move forward immediately. In June, the final plans began coming together.

While Genshaft insists that the university must take this one step at a time, she clearly is looking back at the University at Albany playbook, where new facilities begot more facilities and new high-tech businesses begot more high-tech businesses.

"The bottom line is that the hallmark of all successful technology clusters is the partnership between universities, industry and government," she said. "USF is moving forward, and we are prepared to lead."

Inside the USF Research Park>