Partners aim to turn lab’s discoveries into Cape Cod jobs
Regional Technology Development Corp. of Cape Cod is teaming up with the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole to promote and create a market for the laboratory’s work. The goal is to translate scientific discoveries into business opportunities.
The partnership is similar to one the nonprofit development corporation already has with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a nonprofit whose researchers study the ocean and how it interacts with other environments. At the marine lab - also a nonprofit, with interests complementing those of the oceanographic institute - researchers study biological, biomedical, and environmental sciences.
Robert A. Curtis, chief executive of the Regional Technology Development Corp., also known as RTDC, said the agreements are sure to help the Cape’s economy, as the partners will target local companies interested in using the technologies the RTDC is marketing.
The group also will create new companies for specific technologies.
“That’s important for the Cape, because so much of the economy down here is based on services or hospitality,’’ Curtis said.
The RTDC’s pact with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution already is a fruitful relationship, added Curtis. He said the RTDC is launching a company that will make a cheap, biologically-based water quality test developed at the institution.
Called Petrel Biosensors, the company is seeking venture capital funding or private investments to make its tests, which use single-cell organisms to determine whether a water supply has been contaminated.
The tests are expected to cost about $10, or roughly a 10th of the price of some tests currently on the market.
“When you expose protozoa to water that may have a toxin in it, they swim in different behavioral patterns,’’ Curtis explained.
At the Marine Biological Laboratory, chief academic and scientific officer Joshua W. Hamilton said he has high hopes for the lab’s relationship with the RTDC. Along with other partners, the organizations are already collaborating on two initiatives: turning algae into energy and building a Northeast-based shellfish farming venture.
“The RTDC is a small company that can help us with intellectual property and commercialization,’’ Hamilton said. “I think science more and more is learning that it’s good for society to bring basic research to real-life problems.’’
Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com. 
