Purdue, GE to Partner on Innovations, Technologies

Purdue and GE are teaming up on technology.

An agreement signed by both entities will merge GE’s corporate technology commercialization group with innovations being developed at Purdue in an attempt to create new technologies.

“GE already benefits from a long-term collaborative affiliation with Purdue that dates back more than 100 years, and historically GE hires more Purdue students than from any other university in the world,” said Tony Denhart, region manager, University Relations at GE. “As we have experienced, the core values of Purdue and GE match up well and this agreement moves our partnership to the next level.”

Purdue innovations under consideration for development through the partnership include enhanced medical diagnostic imaging, advanced propulsion technologies, solar technologies, energy recovery technologies and new biological testing technologies.

“An agreement like this can be a game-changer. This tests a new model of collaboration and lays the groundwork for advancing the way universities commercialize innovations,” said Dan Hasler, president and chief entrepreneurial officer of the Purdue Research Foundation. “It’s more than providing novel technologies that have a promise of commercialization, because innovation leaders from GE and Purdue will meet on a periodic basis to discuss strategies and forward-thinking, value-added objectives derived from university-based research.”

In 2011, Purdue, GE Healthcare and the University of Notre Dame partnered on the development and commercialization of a computed tomography (CT) scanning reconstruction technology called Veo that enables doctors to diagnose patients with high-clarity images at previously unattainable low radiation dose levels. The technology currently is sold and used throughout the world.

“The partnership to commercialize a digital CT scanning technology has answered a critical need in health care to provide dose optimized scans and extraordinary image clarity for health care providers,” said Charles A. Bouman, the Michael J. and Katherine R. Birck Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a professor of biomedical engineering at Purdue. “Hopefully the agreement with GE will help us identify more examples like Veo.”

Purdue Research Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. The foundation accepts gifts; administers trusts; funds research, scholarships and grants; acquires property; and negotiates research contracts on behalf of Purdue. In the 1990s, the foundation was charged with helping the university promote economic development.