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WRF Gifts & Disbursements

Disbursements from WRF Licensing
Cumulative license and royalty payments to client institutions:  $159,546,432

(As of June 2007)

WRF Gifts

WRF gifts have supported the creation of over 100 endowments for chairs, professorships, research fellowships and graduate stipends in science, medicine and engineering. Educational programs created and supported by WRF include the Center for Technology Entrepreneurship (UW Business School) and the Program for Technology Commercialization (UW Bioengineering). WRF was a founding supporter of technology “gap” funding programs at the University of Washington, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Washington State University.    WRF's gift program for translational research is headed by Luciana Simoncini, Director of Research Commercialization.  The gifts to Washington State research institutions are targeted to projects with commercial potential.

Selected Success Stories

  • A $30,000 gift to UW Computer Science Department’s Oren Etzioni to develop the core technology that became the basis of the venture-backed company Farecast, in which WRF is an investor.
  • A $20,000 gift to UW Department of Urology’s Dr. Robert Sweet to convert his Virtual Reality Resection Trainer software to a PC platform.  The software was subsequently licensed to a surgical training company by the Digital Ventures team of the UW Office of Technology Transfer.
  • WRF's support of the UW Cell Systems Initiative aided the development of software to design, plan and virtually execute biological experiments.  This software became the platform for start-up company Teranode, in which WRF is an investor.
  • In 2003, WRF made a $28,000 gift to support Dr. Les Atlas’ pilot research into “A Method of Hearing Enhancement” that allowed Dr. Atlas to enter into interdisciplinary collaborations with UW Hearing and Speech and UW Otolaryngology. Dr. Atlas was able to leverage this pilot research to gain $500,000 in additional funding from public and private sources and a Fulbright Senior Research award. The results of the research funded by WRF were patented and licensed to an industry partner for commercialization.