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New Job, Same Blog

Three months ago I had the great fortune of being hired for a job that gives me a front-row seat to the world of biomedical technology commercialization. I now work as a Licensing Associate at UT Southwestern Medical Center's Office for Technology Development. UT Southwestern is one of Texas's premier biomedical research institutions, boasting five Nobel laureates (one now emeritus), 19 members of the National Academy of Sciences, and 12 Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators. The Office for Technology Development manages the institution's efforts in commercializing new technologies developed by its researchers. As Licensing Associate I will be responsible for negotiating and drafting license agreements that grant external entities such as biotech, pharmaceutical, and research reagent companies the right to use and commercialize UT Southwestern-developed technologies. 

Will the nature of my blog change as a result of my new job? Not really. Much of the information I encounter day-to-day in my new job is privileged, so I'm not in a position to blog freely about particular deals I and my office are, were, or will be, involved in. I plan to keep concentrating my blogging efforts on extracting insights about the Texas biomedical industry from publicly available sources of data, with occasional posts highlighting individual people and organizations relevant to my blog's topic. That said, I hope that the blog will come to reflect the ever-increasing understanding of the technology commercialization process I hope I will gain as time progresses.


– Isamu Hartman, PhD







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