First lab-to-market customer

A program begun late last year by Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Long Island Association to commercialize some of the technologies developed at the facility in Upton has found its first customer -- a start-up company formed by a former state assemblyman from Shoreham and his business partner.

Marc Alessi, a Democrat who lost a re-election bid two years ago, and his partner, Burke Liburt, signed an agreement in late December with the lab for a technology dealing with medical imaging and diagnostics. Their company, SynchroPET, Alessi said, will likely be located near the lab. The agreement was made public late last week.

It's the first of what the lab and the LIA, Long Island's largest business and civic organization, hope will be many such deals. Lab and LIA officials see such arrangements as a prime way of creating new companies and jobs on the Island. Late last week, the state Department of Labor said the Island's economy had 9,900 fewer jobs in December than it did a year before, the eighth consecutive month of such declines in employment.

In August, the lab and LIA showcased several technologies under a program in which the cost of optioning a technology was cut by the U.S. government to $1,000, from about $50,000, to speed up commercialization. All 17 national labs are part of the commercialization effort.

Alessi and Liburt took an option on RatCap, an imaging system aimed at diagnosing diseases in small animals that allows the animals to remain awake.

Alessi said the technology could also be used to study Alzheimer's and other diseases. He and Liburt are meeting with potential investors to continue research. "I've always been interested in science and research," said Alessi, explaining the new direction he has taken.

Walter Copan, BNL's managing director of technology commercialization and partnerships, said other agreements are in various stages of negotiation. "There are two that are advanced" in negotiations, he said.