Building a food and health “ecosystem” for innovative commercial research at UC Davis

05 Jul 2024 --- The University of California (UC) Davis, US, combines research with the food and nutrition industry to foster innovation and prepare its students for life after graduation. Nutrition Insight examines how the university creates an ecosystem for nutrition research and commercialization with professionals from its Graduate School of Management (GSM) and the Innovation Institute for Food and Health (IIFH). 

Rao Unnava, Ph.D., GSM dean, highlights that the business school combines MBA students with Ph.D. students from different disciplines in its Food and Agriculture Industry Immersion program. The university brings executives from companies in its corporate network who ask the students to solve complex, real-world problems. 

Starting with one class, the program has since expanded to include more businesses as “other companies started getting to know what we’re doing,” states Unnava. The ambassadors for UC Davis and the business school’s Food & Agriculture Advisory Council also connect the program “with companies with similar mindsets.” 

“It’s a good ecosystem that has been developed,” he emphasizes. “I think in a university environment, it’s a tough thing to do because universities have a habit of decrying the fact that silos exist but consistently rewarding silo behavior.” 

For example, some universities may not reward publications outside of an academic’s field of interest. However, the ecosystem developed at UC Davis enables “cross-disciplinary collaboration.” 

University business model 
Harold Schmitz, senior GSM scholar and general partner in venture capitalist firm The March Group (TMG), adds that the university “spans the whole network of a business model,” including its management school, finance, marketing, sensory lab and genome center. 

The university’s IIFH completes the business model. This institute aims to foster innovation in nutrition by bringing research and commercialization together. 

“All that academic capability around the business model space gets directed to a commercial translation around something,” adds Schmitz. 

For example, IIFH sets up Market Discovery Forums, which bring scientific researchers on a specific topic together with business leaders who focus on commercializing products and services to achieve health outcomes. 

At Market Discovery Forums scientific researchers discuss commercialization products and services with business leaders.Unnava asserts that students can interact and listen to successful business executives in the immersion program. “All they’re talking about is how to do good to the world. That’s a compelling message.”

“The idea is to identify market opportunities or products currently not serving the market well, and these new ideas would be better in the market.” 

Venture capitalist fellowship 
The IIFH Innovator Fellowship enables UC Davis students to develop their entrepreneurial skills by immersing with one of the institute’s venture capitalist partners. 

A partner firm determines its area of interest, such as gut health or water management related to agriculture. Then, the institute identifies laboratories and students and conducts an open recruitment. The venture capitalist interviews and selects a student who commits to six months at that firm. 

Ideally, the institute cooperates with firms that focus on food, agriculture or metabolic health and are in the earlier stages of start-up development to ensure students work with companies close to their development phase. 

“Another goal of the program is to build more bridges between these venture capital firms and UC Davis, toward a larger goal of creating that ecosystem,” adds Dana Armstrong Hughes, the IIFH’s talent development programs coordinator. 

“We have this community of venture capital firms that we want to get involved with UC Davis,” she continues. “How can we bring these firms into our orbit and build more bridges with not just students but their principal investigators (PIs) and their faculty?”

Armstrong Hughes adds: “One of my favorite things is if a student is presenting at the end of their program, and then their PI and whoever is hosting him get into a dialogue about what more they can do together. That is an exponential value add that’s not just the student benefiting but more bridges between UC Davis and the firm.” 

Venture capitalist firms also find the program valuable, obtaining technical expertise they wouldn’t otherwise have. She notes that many firms like to keep students on after the program concludes. 

The Innovator Fellowship program helps to build bridges between venture capital firms and UC Davis.Research extension 
The Innovator Fellowship is an extension of students’ research. It mainly targets later-stage Ph.D. and postdoctoral students. 

“We want students that have a long history of applied specific research in a field and a promising technology to translate and ideally later in their PhD or a postdoctorate so that they have an idea of what they’re doing next,” explains Armstrong Hughes. 

Russelle Alvarez, a third-year Ph.D. student in chemistry and chemical biology, joined TMG as part of the fellowship program. He applies the data methodology he developed in the lab for mass spectrometry analysis to a market and landscape analysis. 

“Right off the bat, they gave me a challenging and interesting project,” he highlights. “Even before coming in, they already knew what I’m capable of, and they presented this challenge to me that they’re hoping that I can use whatever skills I’ve picked up over my Ph.D. projects and then translate it to what we can do with TMG.”

“It’s almost like I’m working on a project, or I experiment here in the lab, and when I have a eureka moment, I can apply it to the project I’m currently working on at TMG.” 

Experiential learning 
Armstrong Hughes asserts that experiential learning is “the most powerful way” to get good at anything, highlighting the value of “being in the shoes of a venture capitalist.” 

“You can sit in the classroom all day and learn science or business, but until you’re in the shoes, doing it and living it and having to make real decisions with real money on the line, that’s where the real transformation happens.”

She illustrates that one of the IIFH fellows is working with a venture capitalist firm on alt-protein start-ups in Chicago. 

“She’s helping that firm develop an investment thesis around that topic and then assessing 50–100 start-ups in that field. By the time she’s done, she doesn’t just know what’s right for her. She knows who’s out there, who’s succeeding and who’s not, what the right questions are to ask, where the direction is going and how the winds are blowing as far as investments go. It gives her a good landscape view of what’s out there.” 

According to Armstrong Hughes, around 15% of Ph.D. students in health fields can become tenure-track faculty. “How can we equip students to enter biotech and industry, start-ups or other areas? They need skill sets beyond just lab research.”

Students can extend their research in the program, to gain entrepreneurial skills and learn how to commercialize it.Commercialize research 
IIFH focuses on use-inspired research — expanding knowledge by considering end user needs. Armstrong Hughes highlights several challenges students face in commercializing their research, which the fellowship program helps to overcome. 

“The first is knowing what questions to ask. Use-inspired research and research with a specific market outcome requires you to ask different questions early on in the research phase so you know how to pursue the right steps.”

“The other challenge they face often is having the right network, knowing who to go to for help or funding and when. The university has a structure with an IP office and an office that can help them as a start-up, but they’re underfunded and overworked, and they serve everybody, not just food and health.” 

She adds that the fellowship supports students in answering questions related to the business world. For example, students are told to refrain from presenting their research at a conference before filing intellectual patents. “People don’t know, which could prevent you from patenting a valuable idea.” 

Alvarez underscores that the fellowship program helps hone entrepreneurial skills. Without it, he wouldn’t know how to translate his research into a commercial product. 

“We don’t have that mindset of commercializing anything that we produce, mainly because a lot of our research is asking more fundamental questions like how do we understand this phenomenon? You can’t patent that, but if you tweak it, you could have some marketable product out of it, or at the very least some additional concepts that can be converted into a marketable product.”

By Jolanda van Hal