University
of California San Diego’s economic development and communications initiative
“Connect� is often referenced as a model for the potential of REALNEO. Connect
show the leaders of important SD institutions and businesses working together to
optimize regional value and world class knowledge, making San Diego world class
– and reading Connect teaches us best practices on how to generate similar value
here. We need to learn lessons from world-class places like San Diego for
Northeast Ohio to compete in the global development marketplace, and excel in
creating unique value here.

An
excellent example of how San Diego has evolved (and of the value of
internationalization) is found in the December 14th Connect
e-newsletter’s “Investors Hub� – a profile of innovators in their community,
which this issue features an Iranian engineer, educated in Canada, who relocated
to San Diego as a telecom executive and morphed there into a Venture Capitalist
when San Diego had built the mass of resources and expertise to support broader
R&D in his field of interests, being wireless communications. From
Connect:

In 1982, Naser Partovi, who had just earned
a Master's Degree in electrical engineering from McGill University, was offered
an engineering job at Hewlett Packard Co. in San Diego. He turned it down
because, at the time, there weren't other job openings to pursue in San Diego if
he discovered HP was not a good fit. San Diego's job-hopping opportunities in
technology have certainly grown since then.

"Looking back at what San
Diego was 20 years ago, it's amazing the transformation that has happened,"
Partovi says. "It's a lot more attractive today,
thanks to companies like Qualcomm and AMCC. We have two of the top semiconductor
companies in the world here. We have the largest concentration of wireless
companies, we have the top quality service providers it takes to build
companies, and we have real entrepreneurs."

Partovi is most excited about the increased investing
opportunities in San Diego's burgeoning networking space. San Diego, he points
out, has one of the largest talent pools in the nation, along with a robust
infrastructure to support a strong and successful wireless
industry.

"I want to help grow that by
helping build companies here," he says. "That's part of our job as investors and
we take that very seriously. I am very positive about San Diego's future in this
area. We finally have enough mass to build upon."

Another
demonstrated value of Connect and San Diego is the university driving research
in advanced fields like nanotechnology and transfering the knowledge into
private enterprise, and private enterprise furthering research at the university
through private partnership and investment. That best practices strategy is
demonstrated in the following article on a field of science of interest in
NEO:

Nanogen Funds Nanotechnology Research at
UCSD's Jacobs
School

Nanogen, Inc. has agreed to provide
$300,000 of funding over a two-year period to support the nanotechnology
research at UCSD. The funds will go to Michael Heller, Ph.D., professor in the
Department of Bioengineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering, and cofounder
of Nanogen. Heller will use the grant to explore
further use of electric field-based technology for nanofabrication and assembly
of nanostructures, as well as the integration of nanostructures with other
devices. The funding will also be used to advance nanotechnology and
nanofabrication applications that are related to the intellectual property
position held by Nanogen and UCSD, while the company
focuses its internal efforts on commercial products for medical diagnostics. "I
am very pleased that Nanogen has agreed to provide
this two-year funding to support the nanotechnology research of Dr. Michael
Heller," says Dr. Shu Chien,
chair of UCSD's Department of Bioengineering,
professor of Bioengineering and Medicine, and director of the Whitaker Institute
of Biomedical Engineering. "The Department of Bioengineering is interested in
fostering innovative research that can be translated to industrial or clinical
applications. Heller is doing cutting-edge research that will advance our
knowledge in the frontier areas of nanotechnology and nanofabrication, and I
look forward to seeing the fruits of this academia-industry partnership, which
will generate significant knowledge in science and valuable benefits to
people."

Heller's ongoing research is based on Nanogen's electric field-based technology to demonstrate the
application of this unique platform in nanofabrication of precision nanoparticles. Nanogen's patent
portfolio currently includes more than 40 U.S. patents and patent applications
based on intellectual property developed by Heller; more than 10 of those relate
to work on nanofabrication he conducted while he was employed by the company.
Nanogen will have a priority position to obtain any
intellectual property rights developed under this current research agreement
with UCSD.

"Nanotechnology applications
will be the key to future advances in medical research. We believe that
development of nanotechnology will enable highly sophisticated, cost efficient
point-of-care diagnostics," says Howard Birndorf,
Nanogen's chairman and CEO.

Related
Links:www.jacobsschool.ucsd.eduwww.nanogen.com

More
about Connect:

UCSD CONNECT is a
university based technology and business accelerator program funded by corporate
underwriting and private philanthropy. Find CONNECT online at
www.connect.org. UCSD CONNECT would
like to spread the word about San Diego's thriving technology and life sciences
industries.