Temple Times: What was your first impression of Temple when you arrived last year?
There is such tremendous energy here. I sensed it when I was interviewing, and it hasn't changed since. You sense that energy and excitement in the administration, the faculty, the students, the staff, and in the members of the Board of Trustees and the President's Advisory Board. It extends to the alumni from the east coast to the west coast and around the world. It has been an exhilarating experience for me.

TT: Moving to Philadelphia from Boca Raton, Fla. — that's a major change of scenery. Was it jarring?
Weatherwise it was a bit jarring at first, having started Dec. 1 at Temple. However, I had lived in Philadelphia as a post doc at Penn in the mid 1970s, so I was familiar with the city and the climate. If anything surprised me, it was how vibrant the city has become. It is a much more beautiful place than I remembered. But perhaps that’s because I spent virtually all my time in the laboratory back then.

TT: From a research perspective, are there advantages to Temple's location?Absolutely. You can start with the research opportunities opened up by the communities surrounding us right here in North Philadelphia. Temple researchers can develop programs that will make a tremendous difference in these communities as well as attract significant state and federal funding.


There are enormous health care disparities here — that's something we at Temple can really work on. I expect great things from outstanding faculty like Dr. Ala Frey, the first African-American board-certified female pediatric surgeon in the U.S.; she was appointed the director of the Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities at Temple's School of Medicine last year. We are seeking significant federal funding for this type of research.


Also, the population of patients served by our health care centers is unique, and we haven't fully taken advantage of this yet. We want to significantly expand the clinical trials here so that we can learn about the unique effects of drugs on the populations around us.

TT: What about Philadelphia's business community?

There are many, many companies in the biosciences here in the Philadelphia area — from pharmaceutical industries to biotech — that offer our researchers opportunities for partnerships and joint projects. That, in turn, will bring more grant funding opportunities to the university. Our location couldn't be better. We're in a perfect position and a perfect place in which to grow.

TT: Temple already is a major research university. What are your ambitions for Temple's research enterprise?

There is no doubt that in a number of areas, Temple already is a world-class research university. But I want to raise the bar. I think that Temple has the ability to move to the highest levels, nationally and internationally. Right now, according to the Carnegie Classification System, we are classified as a "Research University–high activity." We're currently at about $147 million per year in funding of sponsored projects. That's pretty good, but I would like to see Temple move even higher, to the "very high activity" classification, which is the highest attainable. My goal is to have over $200 million in funding and become a Top 100 research university in funding within the next three or four years. With the 300 outstanding new faculty members we've recruited from the world's leading institutions in the last five years, and with all the new, state-of-the-art research facilities that are being built or renovated, I think that's definitely doable.

TT: How do you do that?

We need to aggressively expand funding from all sources, including more federal grants for research. But we also need to look at state funding opportunities, private relationships, corporate partnerships and collaborative agreements with other institutions. We must significantly increase technology transfer opportunities as well and seriously consider developing a business incubator for start-up companies that emerge and spin out of Temple research and technology.

TT: For the uninitiated, what is Tech Transfer, and how much of it does Temple do?

Technology transfer is something that we're working very hard to expand. It's the process of taking discoveries and inventions from the laboratory and putting them into practical use in the community, the country and the world. It's getting discoveries from the laboratory to the street.


The discoveries that emerge out of Temple research — whether they're technologies, drugs, genes, processes — need to go through a step-by-step process of being identified, having the intellectual property protected through patents or copyrights and then licensed and marketed to existing companies or to create new start-up companies to develop and commercialize the Temple laboratory discoveries and inventions.


Last year around $380,000 was brought in by patents emerging from Temple research. About 30 invention disclosures have been submitted this year. With our new technology transfer and entrepreneurship administration team now in place, we expect the number of inventions to at least double in the next year.

TT: Once an invention does make it to the marketplace, what happens with all that revenue?

Many good things for the Temple researcher, the university and the world. Initially, however, there are significant patent costs — the hiring of patent attorneys and such — that the university incurs in the process and which must be paid up front. After that, the inventor, the university and the inventor's school or college get certain percentages. There is a formula that we use. But the greatest good that emerges from these discoveries is the potential usefulness and application of discoveries made in the laboratory. The days of scientists and engineers sitting in secluded laboratories and not sharing their important discoveries with anybody else are over. We have a responsibility to foster research — “translational research” — that translates into discoveries for the good of humankind.

TT: You've recently started something called the Technology Transfer Industry Advisory Committee.

Yes, it began as part of the President's Advisory Board. It's a group of industry leaders and tech transfer insiders, including current and former CFOs and CEOs. They're helping us structure our Technology Transfer Office and giving us advice about setting up venture capital opportunities in science and technology. We meet with them regularly via teleconference or in person, and their advice has been tremendously helpful.

TT: Do you have a favorite recent Temple tech transfer story?

I have several favorites; it's hard to choose. Just off the top of my head, have you heard about the neat little device invented by Dr. Rongjia Tao, professor and chair of physics? It's an electrically charged tube that can be inserted onto a vehicle's fuel line. It creates a field that thins fuel so that smaller droplets are injected into the engine. That leads to more efficient combustion. A diesel car they tested got a 20 percent boost in fuel efficiency. This technology is licensed to a company based on a discovery that had been made earlier. We have several new deals in the pipeline; however, Temple needed someone to drive and negotiate these agreements. Steve Nappi, our new Director of Tech Transfer Operations, came in and is helping to push these through. Once licensed, these technologies will provide a revenue stream to Temple. Steve came in July, and he has already significantly moved the office forward just in the few months he has been here.

TT: You're an inventor yourself. What was your discovery?

For many years, with funding by the NIH and American Heart Association, I have studied the cellular and molecular biology of early heart formation in embryos. In our studies, we found a chemical in the heart — an RNA sequence — that promotes the formation of heart muscle cells from non-muscle cells in an animal model. Recently, we were awarded a patent for that unique RNA sequence. We since have found an RNA sequence in humans that will also promote the formation of heart cells from non-muscle cells. We hope through future research that people whose hearts have been damaged by heart attacks or other disease processes may be able to be treated with this material and have their hearts reform into normal functional cardiac muscle again.

TT: It seems researchers need to think like businesspeople at times.

They do need to understand entrepreneurship and corporate relations, and we can help. We know that Temple faculty members and enterprising students need assistance building partnerships in industry, identifying entrepreneurship opportunities, and developing start-up companies that spin out of their research. We also know that corporations, venture capital firms and government officials at the local, state and national levels need help identifying and working with Temple faculty members and talented students. That's why we appointed John Aybar to be Director of Strategic Initiatives and Corporate Relations earlier this year. He has been an entrepreneur himself. He has developed companies and has been a CEO. John will be Temple researchers' door to the outside and corporate world.

TT: You've explained some of the cascading benefits of tech transfer and entrepreneurship to Temple's researchers, but what do you say to someone — let's say a non-scientist — who's skeptical about the advantages of expanding Temple's research enterprise?

As research at Temple increases, the overall prestige of the university increases. It gives Temple a bigger name around the world, and helps Temple rise as a university in the rankings. That should help us attract even larger numbers of very highly qualified students, and it will get the attention of outstanding faculty members who might decide they would like to come to Temple.


Research also brings money to Temple. That money pays not only for the direct costs of the research project, but it also helps to pay for indirect costs: lighting, electricity, heating, additional academic programs, libraries, seed funding and start-up funding for faculty members, tuition for graduate students, travel funds and so on — even in disciplines that are not related to the specific research projects bringing in the money. In other words, Temple research indirectly provides money for faculty and students who ordinarily wouldn't have sources of funding so they can pursue their own important scholarly and creative endeavors.


But the greatest benefit of growing Temple's research enterprise is the potential to help the world, perhaps by finding ways to help the environment stay pristine for future generations, or exploring new ways to help children learn and succeed in school or perhaps by developing a new drug that may save millions of lives. The chances of this happening are greater than ever due to the outstanding faculty we now have working in a variety of areas. In the case of developing new medicines, for example, expectations for success are very high since we currently are in the process of significantly expanding our clinical trials component at the Health Sciences Campus.

TT: Again, for those of who aren't in the research community, what's a clinical trial?

A clinical trial is where there has been a discovery of a potential treatment — a drug or a medical device — that has gone through testing in an animal model research setting and now it needs to be applied to humans in a controlled clinical setting. In its most simplified form, a clinical trial then would divide the human subjects into two groups, one group that receives the treatment and one group that does not receive the treatment. Then comes a major analysis to determine the effect of the treatment. Does the treatment work or not? Clinical trials are often sponsored by drug companies.


Another new person on our staff — Nina Gentile, M.D., an experienced researcher and Temple faculty member in the area of emergency medicine who has done many clinical trials — has been appointed to head the Office of Clinical Research Administration at the Health Sciences Center. With her considerable national and international expertise in this area, there are expectations of major advances in human clinical trials at Temple.

TT: You mentioned how research supports graduate students. We understand you're seeking to engage more Temple undergraduates in research as well.

Yes. One of our new efforts is to work with the Provost's Office and the Deans to institute in the spring semester of 2009 a new program that will fund opportunities for Temple undergraduate students to have hands-on research experiences. Students will be awarded stipends to work in a laboratory with a faculty mentor. This will allow the student to have the opportunity to work side by side with faculty experts in their fields, both in the sciences and engineering as well as in the scholarly and creative areas. It is expected that this kind of hands-on experience will permit the students to produce original contributions in their fields in the form of co-authored research publications or creative or artistic works.

TT: Earlier in this interview, you mentioned some pleasant surprises about coming to Temple. What if we force you to suggest a few things that you'd like to change?

I believe it is getting much better, but there are still a few problems with outdated bureaucracy and bad habits that have been left over from an earlier time. We must be more nimble if we are to move forward and upward as a research university. Clearly, some of the problem may be a natural product of being a large, decentralized university that's 125 years old. Temple has 17 schools and colleges — this is huge. As a result, one major area that we need to work hard to improve is to have more interaction among the various disciplines — in other words, to break down some of the silos that currently exist keeping disciplines separated.

TT: How do you overcome that?

I believe that it all starts with communication. That's how you break down barriers. For example, as part of our effort to get more federal grants for research at Temple, we're bringing together groups of Temple researchers from different departments and different schools and colleges who have common research interests to meet and share ideas and expertise. This is a strategy that has worked very well at other universities where I've worked. Amazingly some of the Temple faculty who clearly have common interests and common goals, not only have never interacted previously, but didn’t even know each other prior to our meetings. We expect this to change significantly as we move forward with promoting interactions among the different groups. I also very much like and strongly support the Provost's seed grant program to fund collaborative, interdisciplinary research. This is another great way to simultaneously take advantage of Temple's extraordinary breadth of disciplines by reaching across the boundaries that separate our schools and colleges with funding opportunities.

TT: "Bringing researchers together" seems to be a mantra of yours.

There is no doubt about it. This has been one of my trademarks and many of our initiatives in the coming academic year will reflect that. Here's one example: We're planning a special university-wide "Research Week" for March 2009, where all of the colleges and schools will be invited to participate. We anticipate that there will be prominent guest speakers, panel discussions on industry and tech transfer, student and faculty presentations and much, much more. We also hope to bring people together and to keep everyone better informed by starting a quarterly newsletter about research and scholarly and creative activities at Temple as well as expanding our regular electronic updates.


I would like to add though that our purpose in bringing Temple researchers together is not only to promote interactions to improve funding strategies, but also to bring us together to celebrate our outstanding achievements and inspire new ones. I have proposed that we initiate an “Eminent Scholars” Program that acknowledges outstanding researchers and scholars from all disciplines. Great researchers and scholars like those we have at Temple are often consumed by their work. It would be great to take some time to step back and admire what these outstanding faculty members have done. In addition, I would like to initiate an annual awards program that honors outstanding faculty members who have excelled in research and scholarly and creative accomplishments at the various faculty level ranks and also honor outstanding student researchers from the various colleges.


With the great students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends we have at Temple, indeed, there are exciting times ahead.