UTAH SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH INITIATIVE Building on Utah’s heritage of innovation, the Utah State Legislature with strong endorsement of Utah’s business community, passed Senate Bill 75 in March 2006, organizing the Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) initiative. This bill funded USTAR with $300 million to invest in university research with high commercialization potential in targeted innovation focus areas including biofuels, biomedical devices, fossil energy, medical imaging, nanotechnology, and personalized medicine. The expansion of these University technologies into the marketplace will accelerate the growth of new businesses and industries, thus creating high-paying jobs and additional tax revenues. Ultimately, USTAR stands as an innovative, visionary and far-reaching initiative to bolster Utah’s high technology economy by increasing the research capacity at Utah’s research universities resulting in accelerated flow and commercialization of university discoveries, inventions, and innovations. USTAR Innovation Focus Areas and Year 1 results USTAR funding is being used to recruit world-class research teams to Utah to be developed internally within strategic innovation focus areas. These strategic innovation focus areas are based on existing University strengths that have vast commercialization opportunities and address large and/or strategic global markets. • USTAR Summary - Innovation Focus Areas: – Center for Advanced Nutrition – Center for Active Sensing and Imaging (CASI) – BioFuels – Imaging Technology – Diagnostic Imaging – Personalized Medicine – Nano-technology Bio-sensors – Circuits of the Brain – IT Networking & Memory – Biomedical Device Innovation – Fossil Energy •
USU Year 1 Faculty Hires: – Michael Lefevre, Ph.D., Advanced Nutrition/Obesity – Sridhar Viamajala, Ph.D., Biofuels – David York, Ph.D., Center for Advanced Nutrition – David Ward, Ph.D., Center for Advanced Nutrition
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U of U Year 1 Faculty Hires: – Cameron Charles, Ph.D., IT Networking & Memory – Guido Gerig, Ph.D., Diagnostic Imaging – Hamid Ghandehar, Ph.D., Biomedical Device Innovation – Brian McPherson, Ph.D., Fossil Energy – Marc Porter, Ph.D., Nano-technology Bio-sensors – John White, Ph.D., Biomedical Device Innovation – 8 candidates are discussing offers – 12 additional candidates have completed 1st or 2d interviews
Governor’s Office of Economic Development • Annual Report 2007
USTAR is aimed at leveraging the proven successes of Utah’s research universities to create more highpaying jobs in Utah.
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