University Times

The U.S. Defense Department is establishing a center at Pitt to speed commercialization and production of technology to aid police, firefighters and emergency medical workers in dealing with terrorist attacks.
At a June 7 news conference, Pitt officials and U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, announced creation of the Department of Defense Technology Transfer and Commercialization National Center for Excellence for First Responder Technologies. It will work with research centers at Pitt, 88 Defense Department research labs and private industry in western Pennsylvania.
Funded by an initial $1.9 million federal grant (with the expectation of future federal funding), the new center will be housed in the Pantherlab Works, part of the Katz Graduate School of Business’s Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence. Pantherlab Works is Pitt’s center for acceleration of technology commercialization in southwestern Pennsylvania.
“After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,” Murtha said, “our nation’s first responders…proved in a very visible, dramatic way what we’ve always known: They’re heroes, too. And like our military personnel, they need the best available technologies and equipment to be successful.”
Murtha cited the problems that emergency crews from the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia had communicating with one another in the wake of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. Better communication technologies represent just one research-and-commercialization area that the new center for excellence might pursue, he said.
James E. Rooney, director of Pantherlab Works, noted current Pitt research to adapt technologies originally created for U.S. Navy SEALS to develop noise-blocking helmets. By transmitting sound through skull bone, the helmets would allow first responders to hear instructions over the noise of fires and crashing buildings.
Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg mentioned, among other Pitt research projects, electrical engineering professor Marlin Mickle’s work on using radio frequency technology to create a battery-free, constantly recharging power source “that could be extremely important to first responders.”
Murtha, a Pitt alumnus and the ranking member of the U.S. House’s Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said the new center “is not just something for Pittsburgh. This is not just something for western Pennsylvania. This is for the nation, because we need to take this technology that’s being developed – and we’re developing various technologies right here at the University – and get it out to the people and make it cost-effective so they can afford to buy it. That’s what it’s really all about. If we have it on the shelf it doesn’t do us any good.”
Rooney said the new center will analyze first-responders’ needs, identify promising research at Pitt and elsewhere, and link it with companies that can commercialize it.
“We believe that many of the needs that these first responders will require support the expansion, creation and growth of industry clusters in which the University of Pittsburgh and other western Pennsylvania research centers have already established themselves as world leaders,” said Rooney.
Once a viable project has been identified, he said, the center will leverage University resources (including the Office of Technology Management, the Universities Technology Commercialization Alliance and Pittsburgh Gateways Corp.) to move these innovations from laboratory to market.
“We believe the outcome of this project will provide substantial benefit to the needs of our nation’s first responders and to all citizens in the event of a disaster,” Rooney said. “We also believe this national center will expand western Pennsylvania’s economy by capitalizing on our research strengths to create new business opportunities and, ultimately, jobs.”
Rooney cited a recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations claiming that America is “dangerously unprepared” for additional terror attacks. The council’s report recommends that the United States spend up to $98 billion to prepare for potential attacks. Pitt officials and Murtha said the new center should help to bring some of those funds to western Pennsylvania.
Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg said Pitt is “truly honored” to be chosen as the first campus to house a Defense Department center of excellence in first-responders technologies. “While Pitt and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are established leaders in bioterrorism preparedness, the new center will harness technological innovation to help first responders who risk their lives to protect the public,” Nordenberg said.
— Bruce Steele