Short and Sweet: I-Corps Teaches Professor to Abbreviate Presentations to Potential Customers

LSU Biological Sciences Professor Roger Laine established his startup bonafides in Silicon Valley well before he enrolled in the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps.

Laine left his position as LSU Biochemistry Department chair to serve as co-founder and chief scientific officer of a San Francisco-based firm that produced anti-inflammatory compounds. There he helped attract millions in venture capital, hiring 40 scientists and technicians during a growth phase that led to the company going public in a $150 million stock deal. Still, Laine always regretted not having more business education.

“I should have taken some courses. I had opportunities, but the time was never right,” Laine said.

After his stock vested, Laine got an invite from Genentech, an early investor in the startup, to provide sugar analysis. He wasn’t interested. Laine wanted to strike out on his own.

“I came back to LSU. I decided, well, I’m not going to work on anything unless it’s patentable,” Laine said.

His eclectic research interests eventually led him to create a startup and license a treatment for inoperable tumors. The treatment is based on two carbohydrates isolated from the bacteria that cause strep throat and hospital-acquired infections.

Despite his earlier success, Laine wanted to know more about being an entrepreneur. He applied to I-Corps’ regional program. The regional courses require participants to interview at least 30 potential customers.

“I-Corps regional gave me the incentive to make very short, effective presentations. When you present at a scientific meeting, you have 30 to 45 minutes,” Laine said. “For businesspeople, you have maybe a tenth of that. You say what your technology will do and how it’s valuable to them.”

LSU is one of nine members of NSF’s I-Corp Hub: Southwest. Members combine resources, empowering LSU to double or even triple the number of prospective entrepreneurs it could train on its own.

“I-Corps enables inventors to talk to people who may use the technology before the researchers invest a lot of time and energy building it out," said Jacob Clemmons, I-Corps program manager at LSU. "Innovators find out what customers need and ensure the technology meets their needs."

Laine isn’t finished innovating. His latest venture in insect repellents discovered in his lab requires training in I-Corps’ national program, a requirement for a $550,000 NSF grant to Laine and LSU Chemical Engineering Professor Kerry Dooley and Department Chair Mike Benton. National I-Corps requires 100 interviews with prospective customers over seven weeks.

“I-Corps regional pushed me to make industry contacts, which truthfully is a difficult task for academics,” Laine said. “I don’t know a lot about the national program. I guess I’ll find out.”

In the regional program’s customer discovery, Laine had to find the firms who wanted the cancer treatment and the right people to talk to at those companies. Then he had to learn how to speak to them in their vernacular.

This time around, Laine, Dooley, Benton and their research team are working on ways to lower the cost of synthesizing an insect repellent.

Nootkatone, an FDA-approved organic compound that helps give grapefruit its flavor, has proven effective against mosquitoes, fleas and termites. The federal Centers for Disease Control also found nootkatone effective in repelling the deer tick responsible for Lyme disease. But nootkatone now costs $2,500 a kilogram, too expensive to use in insect repellent. The research team hopes to sell or license the low-cost nootkatone synthesis method to a manufacturing company.