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Brain students solve universal lab dilemma
The Florey students, who called their business ‘Floreya’ (pronounced Florey-ah,) are participating in the biotech business program was adapted from the YAA’s Business Skills Program. The new program has attracted principal sponsorship from the Victorian State Government. While the biotech business program has yet to go national, it has already attracted attention nationwide, evidenced in the special national award presented to the Floreya business team. Additional state awards for the program were presented at the regular time in March 2005. The students won the Cochlear Innovative Product or Service Award 2004 for ‘Rackyatips,’ an affordable product that greatly simplifies the process of sorting and racking pipette tips, which are used extensively in almost all laboratories. Pipette tips can be purchased boxed and ready for use, but many labs, especially in educational and non-profit organisations, buy the tips loose in bags because it is much less expensive. Currently available solutions for boxing the tips are complex and very expensive. Rackyatips will enable lab workers to pour the tips into the sorter, rack them and transfer them to boxes ready for use in less than half the time it takes to do it by hand. Racking the tips by hand is a time-consuming task that every lab worker and student comes to hate, said Daniel Scott, the Floreya member who developed the product concept, which the team then refined and tested until they were satisfied with it. “Working in a lab as a student, you have to pack your own tip boxes, which is tedious, and I’m always trying to find a way to make things easier and more efficient,” Mr Scott said. In fact, so great is the desire for an affordable and effective machine to box pipette tips that almost every one of the 13 teams participating in the Biotech Entrepreneur Program identified it as a problem that needed to be solved. However, only Floreya developed a simple and affordable tip-racking machine. The students are now producing and marketing their aluminium and Perspex Rackyatips machine for $260. “There’s been a lot of positive feedback. Everyone who’s seen it has been impressed,” Mr Scott said. The Floreya team consists of 10 PhD students: Percy Chu, Eugene Duff, Mark Farso, Travis Featherby, Linda Lau, Caitlin McOmish, Ishanee Mookerjee, Daniel Scott, Nathan Stam and Tracey Wilkinson. They accepted the award at YAA’s 2004 National Awards presentation in Sydney in November 2004. YAA is a non-government, not-for-profit organisation that seeks to develop business enterprise skills and understanding in young Australians through partnerships with business, education and the community, thereby contributing to Australia’s prosperity. Participants in the Biotechnology Entrepreneur Program are guided through a 24-week program by industry mentors. During that period, they develop a product, taking it through the commercialisation process from concept to market. Other steps in the program include selling shares to raise capital, establishing an organisational structure, developing a code of ethics, preparing a business plan, preparing an Annual Report, and returning capital to shareholders at the end of the program. The YAA business development project has broadened the horizons and skills of the team, Mr Scott said. “As a scientist you can get a very narrow view of your career and your future, and you don’t realise how versatile your skill set is. “This has opened up career alternatives because everyone has learned how to apply our skills to business. “Programs like this let you know that business is an option and you get to try it out in a very safe environment,” Mr Scott said. For further information on Floreya and their Rackyatips machine, please visit www.gradstudies.unimelb.edu.au/prog_services/studentnews/gradnews/pdf/GradNews Sem 02.2005.pdf
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A group of PhD students at the Howard Florey Institute in Melbourne have won a special national award for developing the ‘Most Innovative Product’ in Young Achievement Australia’s 2004 Biotechnology Entrepreneur Program.