Center Divisional Structure
Commercial Applications Unit

CAU will be the commercial arm of the CIPM that facilitates the role of the business entities involved with this project.

The objectives of the CAU are:

• Communicate the need for research and development to the local business community.


• Introduce the potentially commercialized outcomes of research conducted at the CIPM.


• Identify business opportunities that may arise in the ongoing research.


• Facilitate the translation of research into marketable products by bridging the knowledge gaps in procedures


• Oversee collaborative projects between the Research Development Unit and business partners .

CAU will run the following projects before the end of 2013:

RIS will either focus on research or industrial experience and they will encourage students to gain experience outside academia and generate mutual research interests between industry and the University. The CAU will seek industry and business sponsors of postgraduate students who will fund their living and research expenses throughout their studies. The Studentship will be given a prestigious status and will be awarded by an international competition to the most promising young investigator among the applicants.

KTP will be an opportunity to transfer technology from the research point of view to manufacturing and production. The KTP program will offer a business partner the opportunity to designate a company staff member to visit the CIPM and undergo a scheduled training program, run in collaboration with the Education & Community Outreach Unit, where he or she will be taught the basics of research and offered the opportunity to learn how to operate advanced equipment.

Delivery of Personalized Medicine requires four people: The Healthcare practitioners and their patients (customers), business partner (co-supplier) and CIPM (owner and supplier). Networking events will be held at regular intervals bringing the customers and suppliers together offering the opportunity to establish vital contacts and ways to identify customer needs.

Scientists and principal investigators are using business skill without realizing that they do. From writing a research proposal to managing the research funds to publishing their outcomes are all skills that are shared with the business sector. The CAU will seek to promote such skills by organizing, with the Education & Community Outreach Unit, courses and workshops that will enhance the business skills of the CIPM scientists and enhance the potential to translate the research projects they are conducting into marketable products.

After the discovery of a new genetic or epigenetic variant(s), The CAU will setup a product development task force to speed up the commercial utilization of the new findings. The task force will be composed of the CIPM director, CIPM Business manager, the team leader involved in the finding as well as the coordinator of the TMA sub unit and supported by administrative staff. Patents will be applied for and business links activated to look into ways to manufacture the new product.

The CAU will be overseeing the task of setting up the spin-off company officially registered and licensed.