Venue with a view: Grand America hotel and conference facility, Salt Lake City, Utah, US

TMR+ is in Utah this week for COMS 2014 – a key conference on the lab-to-market events calendar looking at the commercialization of micro, nano and emerging technologies. The four day meeting, which was held in Europe last year, focuses primarily on entrepreneurship and marketable solutions, not just science and technology. And with its Young Technology Award and accompanying bootcamp session for entrants, the event takes a hands on and practical approach to guiding entrepreneurs from university spin-outs and early-stage companies.

The conference features lab and company visits, and a series of plenary sessions examining the commercialization process from first idea to final product. Keynote speakers at this year’s meeting include George Gruner of UCLA, who will be commenting on the search for application-relevant materials and changes in the research landscape.

Building on these themes, Translational Materials Research (TMR) is chairing a session – The New Age of Materials: Why Translation Matters (Track C4) – featuring Deborah Jackson from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Fiona Jamieson – science and innovation officer at the Institute of Physics (IOP), Deborah Newbury from the Nano-Link Center, and Xiao Feng Zhang of Hitachi High Technologies.

Registered and ready to go: TMR+ will be posting highlights from COMS 2014

The full COMS 2014 programme is available online and I’d encourage you to come along to the conference if you’re in the area on Monday 13th, Tuesday 14th or Wednesday 15th of October.

Show report
If you’re unable to attend, but still want to follow the meeting then register for updates on TMR+ as we’ll be posting a show report for COMS 2014. It’s easy to sign up, just look for the “subscribe to email alerts” box on TMR+.