How to become a center of attention: with its growing infrastructure, ambitious agenda and creative research centers, UNC Greensboro capitalizes on its strengths.

• Position: UNC Greensboro - University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Research, scholarship and innovation are taking on new energy and vitality at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Recognized for more than a century as one of the state's leading universities in education and the liberal arts and sciences, UNCG is rapidly growing its research agenda and infrastructure so that it can move projects from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Despite a tough economy and budget constraints, UNCG's research has moved ahead by capitalizing on existing strengths, interdisciplinary research and research centers and projects designed to germinate new ideas.

A vital part of the research enterprise has been infrastructure growth. UNCG's $40 million Science Building opened in fall 2003 to provide top facilities for teaching science and conducting research. The university has hired an associate provost for research, who serves as UNCG's chief research officer. It opened the Office of Technology Transfer in 2002 and the Office of Research Compliance a year later.

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A long-accepted rule in research is to focus results on quality of life. This took on new meaning after Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980. This landmark federal legislation gave researchers the freedom to retain the intellectual property they developed using federal money, a primary source of research funding at universities throughout the United States. In return, they were to translate the fruits of their research into useful products--a task that often proves to be exceedingly difficult.

In December 2002, within nine months of the Technology Transfer Office's opening, UNCG spun off the company EcoGenomix Inc., which uses research developed by faculty in the UNCG Department of Biology. It is one of a growing number of biotechnology companies in the Piedmont Triad and will contribute to the economic growth of the community.

EcoGenomix is developing technology that can identify potential bioterrorist agents in water supplies as part of a continuing, cost-effective evaluation of water quality. Its product, the WaterChip[TM], is being developed as a microarray, a genetic sampler that can detect and analyze microbes that can indicate environmental quality. Its inventors believe the WaterChip[TM] represents a revolutionary approach to water surveillance, and it could detect both anticipated and unanticipated contamination.

In fall 2003, UNCG created SERVE Inc., a licensed not-for-profit corporation that will disseminate...