Q&As

This Q&A about technology transfer is intended as a useful resource to the Nature Communications readership, particularly academic scientists working in the life and physical sciences who have an interest in commercializing their research. We spoke to Dr. Andrea Crottini, Head of the Technology Transfer Office at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, who provided insights into the possible avenues to pursue.

Digital medicine tools, including medical AI, have been advocated as potential game-changers to solve long-standing healthcare access and treatment inequality issues in low and middle income countries. As these applications are increasingly becoming a reality, we connect here with researchers with experience in planning and deployment of these tools in under-resourced settings.

Bo Zhen (Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania), Andrea Blanco Redondo (Head of Silicon Photonics, Nokia Bell Labs), Alexander Szameit (Professor of Physics, University of Rostock), and Patrice Genevet (research scientist in photonics, Centre de recherche sur l’hétéro-épitaxie et ses applications, CNRS) talked to Nature Communications about the opportunities and challenges in the integration of topological photonics systems into real-world devices as well as envision new functionalities, but from a practical perspective.

Ruth Plummer is Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine, Newcastle University, and an honorary consultant medical oncologist in Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She directs the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre and leads the Newcastle Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre and CRUK Newcastle Cancer Centre. She has taken multiple agents targeting DDR into the clinic, including the first-in-human PARP and ATR inhibitors. In addition, she has an active clinical practice treating skin cancer, both in the advanced and adjuvant settings and with an associated clinical trials portfolio including both early and later phase trials. In this interview for Nature Communications, Ruth Plummer shares her knowledge about the basic principles for the design of clinical trials and how they should be reported.

Air pollution is an environmental and health concern affecting millions globally every day. Dr Audrey de Nazelle, an expert in air pollution risk assessment and exposure science at Imperial College London, shares with Nature Communications their thoughts on the impacts of air pollution and the policies needed to tackle emissions.

Air pollution and the associated health impacts affect millions of people around the world. In this Q&A, Professor Haikun Wang, an expert on the health risks of air pollution and climate change at Nanjing University, shares with Nature Communications their thoughts on the impacts of air pollution and the policies needed to tackle emissions.

Air pollution is an environmental and health concern affecting millions globally every day. Professor Denise Mauzerall, an expert in air pollution and climate change at Princeton University, shares with Nature Communications their thoughts on the impacts of air pollution and the policies needed to tackle emissions.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) scientists are an invisible minority that still faces harassment and discrimination. Fostering safe, designated LGBTQ+ environments is a way for the community to connect with each other and raise awareness. In honor of Pride Month (June 2021), Dr. Keisling (postdoctoral fellow at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University), Dr. Le Bras (scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) and Dr. Ludka (postdoctoral researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography) share with Nature Communications their experiences bringing together the LGBTQ+ community at geoscience conferences, and offer advice for how other disciplines can do the same.

The various restrictions applied across the globe to contain the COVID-19 pandemic have been impacting the way we knew how to work. Dr. Matthews (a scientific program manager at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke—NINDS), Dr. David del Álamo Rodriguez (head of the European Molecular Biology Organization—EMBO—fellowship program), and Dr. Gray (Associate Dean for the Sciences at the Advanced Science Research Center of the City University of New York) shared with Nature Communications their thoughts on how funders and university leadership can support early career researchers and young faculty through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The various restrictions applied across the globe to contain the COVID-19 pandemic have been impacting the way we knew how to work. Ms. Wilson (a PhD student in Earth System Science at Stanford University), Dr. Xin (a glia biologist and postdoctoral fellow at University of California San Francisco), and Dr. Saidaminov (a researcher in advanced functional materials and Assistant Professor at the University of Victoria) shared with Nature Communications their thoughts on how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting their professional development and career progression and their coping strategies.

Dr Nicolas Mano is a Senior Researcher at Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal, France. His research interests include (bio)electrochemistry, biosensors, biofuel cells, enzymes engineering, and the use of carbonaceous materials for electrodes. His aim is to develop approaches where biochemical fuels can be converted into electricity and applied into bioelectrochemical applications. In this conversation, he is discussing the advancements in the field of biofuel cells in the past ten years and look ahead at future developments.

Winnie Byanyima is the Executive Director of UNAIDS and leads the United Nations’ efforts to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. She is also a longstanding champion of social justice and gender equality having led Uganda’s first parliamentary women’s caucus where she championed gender equality provisions during her 11 years as an elected member of the Ugandan parliament. To mark World AIDS Day 2020, Nature Communications interviewed Winnie about how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the UNAIDS Fast Track targets, the impact of both epidemics on women around the world, and what is next in the fight against HIV.

Dr. Yi Liu is the facility director at the Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Trained as a supramolecular chemist and after a postdoctoral stay and working on click chemistry in Sharpless’s group he started his independent research career working on organic electronics, porous materials, and covalent organic frameworks (COFs). His aim is to develop nanostructured electronic materials through the design, synthesis and manipulation of tailor-made molecular constituents.

Prof. Donglin Jiang is a full professor at the National University of Singapore and is recognized as a pioneer in the field of 2D polymers and covalent organic frameworks (COFs). With a background in chemistry and studies on dendrimers for ten years, the beauty of dendrimers inspired him to consider the possibility of constructing other types of polymers with well-defined shapes and structures. After taking up an associate professorship in 2005 to set up an independent laboratory at the Institute for Molecular Science at the National Institute for Natural Science, he started to dedicate his work on the design, synthesis and functional exploration of 2D polymers, COFs and conjugated microporous polymers.

Professor Xiaodong Zou is a full professor and chair of Inorganic and Structural Chemistry and deputy head of the Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry at Stockholm University. After completing her PhD in structural chemistry and electron crystallography, she started at the beginning of her independent career to apply these techniques in solving structures of porous materials. She first worked on development of inorganic porous materials, such as zeolites and related open-frameworks. A joint project with Prof. Michael O’Keeffe drew her attention to metal organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and reticular synthesis. Since then, she is working on developing structure characterization techniques for porous materials.

Prof. Natalia Shustova is the Peter and Bonnie McCausland Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina. After receiving her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Moscow State University and a second Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from the Colorado State University, she became interested in porous frameworks during her time as a Postdoctoral Associate in the group of Prof. Mircea Dincă at MIT. After starting her independent research career first as an Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina in 2013 and since 2017 as Associate Professor, her research interest lies in the development of materials for sustainable energy conversion, sensing and artificial biomimetic systems.

Dr. Kishana Taylor (a microbiologist and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of California, Davis), Dr. Nella Vargas-Barbosa (an electrochemist and Scientist at the Max Planck Institute) and Dr. Anouk Beniest (a geologist and Postdoctoral Researcher at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel) talked to Nature Communications about their recent experiences at virtual conferences as early career researchers, since the onset of international COVID-19 travel restrictions. Kishana, Nella and Anouk share tips for navigating virtual conferences as junior researchers, and they also give suggestions for conference organizers to improve virtual scientific meetings so they more inclusive for younger scientists.

Cornelia Betsch (a psychologist, University of Erfurt), Vittoria Colizza (a computational epidemiologist, INSERM), Sara del Valle (a computational epidemiologist, Los Alamos National Laboratory), Chikwe Ihekweazu (a public health epidemiologist, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control) and Carmela Troncoso (a data security specialist, EPFL) talked to Nature Communications about their experience with COVID-19 response and their vision on a new system for disease surveillance and control, providing a view on how this should interact with policy making.

Robert S. Langer is an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Leading one of the largest biomedical engineering labs in the world his research covers many areas of biotechnology including tissue engineering, drug delivery, biofabrication and the development of medical devices. Mark Tibbitt is an Assistant Professor of Macromolecular Engineering at ETH Zürich. His research focuses on combining polymer engineering, synthetic chemistry, mechanical and bioengineering for biofabrication, drug delivery and mechanobiology applications.