Team effort Scientist and business students generate company to

ST. LOUIS -- Jeff Mumm was a Washington University scientist looking for help in crafting a business plan. Craig Gaffin and three of his Washington University classmates were business students looking to help entrepreneurs with a science background.

The result: Luminomics.

The life-sciences company plans to sell licenses for a process on cell regeneration that could aid in finding the cures for diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

In a contest judged by local entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, Luminomics won the Olin School of Business prize for best business plan in 2002.

A two-employee company that exists only on paper, Luminomics is looking at moving into laboratory space in late spring.

It's still an early stage company, but the potential could be immense. With cell regeneration, "You not only stop the disease, but you get back what you lost," said Mumm, the company's president.

A collaboration between two schools at Washington University would seem natural, but it's just starting to happen, said Ken Harrington, who runs the university's Skandalaris Program in Entrepreneurship.

"The fact is that we're becoming more of an entrepreneurial community," he said. "The work we did with Luminomics will serve as a model that will be multiplied many times over."

The move to create businesses out of the research at Washington University could be a boon to the St. Louis area.

"Instead of licensing the research to pharmaceutical companies outside of St. Louis, we can create local businesses and help the local economy," said Chris Keller, a second-year business student who also works at the Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise.

Studied brain cells

Mumm had studied the regeneration of cells in human brains and noses when he was an undergraduate, about a decade ago. While working toward his doctoral degree at Washington University, he started to do research on zebra fish, which show a greater capacity for regenerating cells than humans.

It got him thinking about experimenting with zebra fish to find cures for hereditary blindness -- and the potential commercial uses for his work. But he needed to refine his business plan.

That's when he sent an e-mail to Harrington, who teaches the entrepreneurship class at the business school. Mumm asked if it was possible to work collaboratively between the schools.

He also asked Eric Schroeter, who holds a doctoral degree in developmental biology, to join him in his research.

Mumm didn't know that at about the same time, Gaffin and one of his classmates at the business school, as part of the entrepreneurship class, had approached Harrington. They were interested in working with entrepreneurs who were focusing on science. Keller and another student joined the team a few months later.

The biggest challenge: The business-school students had to grapple with science, and the scientists had to learn about business.

"It was two different worlds coming together," Gaffin said. "Some guys picked it up quickly, but it took me some time to take apart their process and how their science was different."

Mumm said, "Learning how to speak each other's language took a long time."

Then, about two months before the project's deadline, the team realized that the focus had to switch from finding a cure to hereditary blindness to regeneration. It was a similar experimental process, but a far larger market.

Some local venture capitalists had suggested the switch during Luminomics' practice presentations.

"While curing blindness was a morally worthy cause, the size of that market just wasn't that compelling," Keller said. "The more compelling application would be finding a cure for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's."

Many late nights later, the business plan was ready. The presentation was made in spring 2002.

The company intends to hire 10 employees within the next few years. But that's all up to Mumm and Schroeter.

The business students' "role has somewhat diminished, and we have moved on to doing other things,as well," said Gaffin, who works for the biotech company Amgen Inc. "It was a great, great experience, one that I've been very fortunate to have been a part of."