The zoology and genetics department will kick off the first in a four-part series of lectures about turning research into business on Friday.

Each lecture in the “From Discovery to Corporate Structure” series will be presented by instructors who have started companies based on their research and discoveries within their field.

Duane Enger, professor and chairman of the zoology and genetics department, said the biggest challenge professors face when starting their own company is gathering necessary funding.

“[Iowa] ranks very low in population for funding,” he said.

The necessary money comes from Federal Small Business Research Investments, which is given in relation to the population size.

Enger said starting new companies is good for the economy.

“It’s something we really need to do in order to have a discovery-based economy,” he said.

The economy around universities produces many new inventions, Enger said.

“Especially in the Silicon Valley, there is huge activity of discoveries,” he said.

To start a new company, the invention or product needs to be new, useful and not obvious. Receiving a government patent is also essential, Enger said.

Eric Henderson, professor of zoology and genetics, will present “Tiny Science, Big Business? Scientific and Business Perspectives of Ultra-Miniaturized Bioassays” at 4:10 p.m. Friday in Room 1414 of Molecular Biology.

Henderson, chief scientific officer and chairman of the board for BioForce Nanosciences, agreed with Enger about the challenges of starting a business.

He said significant amounts of technological development are needed.

It took Henderson six years of federal grant funding before his company become attractive to investors, he said.

He makes a is a chip-based product for biological testing that could run from one to a thousand operations at once.

“The whole point is to take a tiny amount of information in order to get a data-rich result,” Henderson said.

He compared his product to the medical world, where a single drop of a patient’s blood conveys a vast amount of information.

Henderson said he has learned a great deal about working with other people by starting his own company.

“[Starting a business] allowed me to develop a pleasant working environment and work with a great group of people,” he said.

The next lecture will be presented Oct. 11 by Charles Link, of Link Pharmaceuticals. Link is an associate professor of zoology and genetics and a Des Moines-based doctor.

Nick Vahanian, chief medical officer of Link Pharmaceuticals, said the company’s goal is “to become a vertically integrated pharmaceutical company by executing our mission of identifying novel targets and developing and designing molecular medicines for the treatment and diagnosis of cancer.”

Dan Voytas, professor in zoology and genetics and founder of Phytodyne, Inc., will present a lecture on Oct. 25.

“The first biggest challenge was know-how. As a professor, I knew very little about the business world,” he said.

Voytas said as president of Phytodyne, he does everything from managing his company’s research program to securing financing.

The series will wrap up with “Resources for ISU Faculty Interested in a Technology-based Business.”

The program will be presented by a group of speakers on Nov. 8 at the ISU Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship.

The times and locations of the last three seminars are yet to be announced.