NSTDA lures funds for research commercialisation

"There were also walk-in investors. The feedback from businesses is better than last year," said Sumonwan Sungchuay, manager of NSTDA's National Centre for Genetic

 Engineering and Biotechnology. She organised the business forum, held as part of NSTDA Annual Conference (NAC 2009), which finished on Saturday. At last year's forum only 30 business-owners showed up to cut deals with researchers and inventors.

A further positive sign is interest from Japan and the United States. Last year no foreign businesses turned up, and only one commercial-production contract was signed, some five months after the event. Sumonwan expects at least three deals this year. Eighty-four contracts have been signed since the scheme began in 1995.

Shunichi Miyashige, assistant manager for plastics and development at Nagase (Thailand), showed interest in a bio-plastics project.

"We trade in plastic resins and expect costs to rise in line with oil prices, so I'm looking for a substitute - say bio-plastics - to cut costs. I'm here to sound out the researcher to see if we can come to an agreement. The Thai researcher could also be invited to meet specialists from Japan for joint technology development," Miyashige said.

Forty-six prominent projects were presented to business people during the four-day event. The most attractive to business people were nanotech mosquito repellent, electronic sniffers and a special film to protect bricks from moss.

NSTDA projects and inventions were on show at the conference, together with exhibitions on Darwin's life and work, neo-Darwinism, biodiversity and its applications, and natural catastrophes and extinction, featuring a new species of mollusc, Amphidromus atricallosus classiarius, discovered by Thai scientists, and the first living creatures, cyanobacteria or blue-green algae.

Academic meetings were also arranged under the auspices of NAC 2009.