Building Successful Collaborations in Industry and Academia

By Alix Berglund

The CMI hosted an Associate Member Workshop on September 27^th entitled, Building Successful Collaborations in Industry and Academia. The workshop provided graduate students, postdocs, and research specialists the opportunity to hear from two distinguished scientists about the challenges and value of collaborations between industry and academia. Dr. Paul Hamilton, PhD, Associate Professor of Plant and Microbial Biology and Director of the Master of Microbial Biotechnology Program at NC State, and Dr. Peter Johnson, MD, Principal of MedSurgPI, LLC., served as panelists for the workshop.

Dr. Hamilton spoke about his over 20 years of experience in the biotechnology industry and outlined the challenges that come with collaborations between industry and academia. He stressed the importance of communication and of establishing goals, timelines, and milestones early in the collaboration to prevent these challenges from inhibiting success.

Dr. Johnson described his journey from surgeon to academic to founder of multiple biotechnology companies and discussed the value of finding “first class people” to collaborate with, those who repay as much as they receive and work hard to invest services in one another. He also emphasized that mentorship was critical for forming successful collaborations early in an individual’s career.

This was the third biannual CMI Associate Member workshop and was coordinated by Linda Costine and CMI Associate Member Representative, Alix Berglund

Thank you to Drs. Hamilton and Johnson for another successful workshop!