Agilent Research Fellow Gerard Rozing
Intensely curious, Gerard Rozing is always on the lookout for the next big thing. >He is especially interested in potentially disruptive developments – projects where researchers are trying to do something in a new way, a way that could be cheaper, faster or more precise, a way that could impact Agilent’s business.
While Agilent constantly innovates through its own R&D efforts, the company also keeps a watchful eye on research being conducted at universities around the world. Here’s a case in point: There’s a project now under way at the University of Heidelberg that has Gerard particularly excited about the future of chromatography, the science used to separate the components of a given sample.
“Chromatography is a very sequential process,” Gerard explains. “You do a sample, wait until it finishes, then do another. But this young professor in Heidelberg, Oliver Trapp, has developed a methodology to multiplex that. Multiplexing is widely used in communications – a single shared line transporting simultaneous signals over separate logical, or virtual, channels – but it’s never been done in chromatography.
“In communications it is simple because you only have to manipulate electrons,” Gerard points out. “In chromatography you have to manipulate liquids, and that’s much more difficult. Multiplex chromatography instead of single-channel chromatography – it’s a new analytical technology, and if it works out well it will be I wouldn’t say a disruptive technology, but certainly a dramatic change.”
In short, it’s an area where Agilent wants to be involved. If the project is successful, it will have far-reaching effects in areas of life science such as proteomics. As a result, the Agilent Technologies Foundation is funding the research for a year.
Answering critical questions
Gerard is an Agilent Research Fellow – an influential expert in liquid chromatography, capillary electrophoresis and micro separations – who serves primarily as a consultant, assessing new technologies, possible acquisitions and potential collaborations.
Though he resides in Waldbronn, Germany, where he works in Agilent’s Life Sciences Group, Gerard’s job takes him all over Europe. He may be in Geneva one day and Leiden or Salzburg the next.
A big part of his job is managing university relations for LSG’s Liquid Phase Analysis Division, and the collaboration with the University of Heidelberg is just one example among many. His work isn’t all about disruptive technologies, though. Gerard also keeps an eye out for breakthroughs where researchers want to use Agilent equipment to answer critical biological questions.
Take, for example, Leiden University in the Netherlands.
“They’re taking our equipment and trying to establish and validate an inventive methodology for metabolomics – a new research area where people are trying to find markers (metabolites) for the diseased state,” Gerard says.
University Relations at a Glance
University Relations makes strategic investments in universities around the world in order to capture maximum revenue, research and recruiting value for Agilent. The program:
Connects with thought leaders Promotes adoption of Agilent solutions
Leverages academic applications and core technology research Opens doors for Agilent at academic institutions
Researchers work backward from metabolites (the products of metabolism) to find the ill-functioning process that results in disease. “One can then define a therapy,” Gerard explains, “and follow the progress of the therapy by monitoring the metabolite again.”
The Netherlands Metabolomics Center at Leiden University is using capillary electrophoresis and mass spectrometry instruments from Agilent, along with a methodology developed by one of our partners, to validate the work.
Even though the technology that Agilent uses to couple capillary electrophoresis with mass spectrometry is the most rugged, robust and versatile on the market, it has certain disadvantages that this research project could very well offset.
As a result, the Agilent Technologies Foundation is funding this research for three years. The university benefits from using the most advanced equipment on the market, and Agilent benefits from the international exposure such projects can bring.
Huge market, long cycle
The university market is huge, Gerard says, especially now with stimulus money coming in from governmental agencies across Europe.
“But the whole buying cycle is a very long one, and you need to be involved in the beginning, before they even consider doing a project and getting funding for that, so they know how your products and solutions fit the research they want to do,” Gerard says.
“What I’m actually doing many times is visiting universities, maintaining relationships and establishing new relationships, so people know us and what we are doing. On one hand they have to have respect for what our organization has been doing from a scientific perspective – that is, what we contribute to the science
we are all working in – and on the other hand they must be convinced about what we are doing as far as the products are concerned. It’s very important that we speak with these people on an equal level: scientist to scientist.”
Jack Wenstrand, Agilent’s director of University Relations and External Research, notes that Gerard embodies two vital attributes: “Not only does he have the rare and valuable skill of being able to spot academic research with high potential value to Agilent, but Gerard is also able to communicate his understanding – and enthusiasm – to others who then actively collaborate with the university. That combination is just invaluable.”
Changing the climate
Born in Heemskerk, Netherlands, Gerard received a doctorate in organic chemistry from the University of Amsterdam. Then, in 1979, a former classmate, Henk Lauer, persuaded Gerard to join him at HP in Germany.
The company was growing rapidly and Gerard advanced quickly, learning on the job, managing people and projects, and picking up several patents in separation science along the way. By 2000 he was working for Agilent, which had spun off from HP, and he was ready to really focus his talents.
“My boss at the time, Fred Strohmeier, who is still my boss, wanted to let me do what I like best, which is to work with the outside world, with university relations, and since then I have been doing that full time,” Gerard says. “I have been able, over the past 10 years, to make almost a climatological change in our organization here in Waldbronn and maybe beyond that as well.”
He describes what it was like before: “All those people in the university area, in the academic area, were regarded as very demanding customers who didn’t have enough money to buy and always wanted the highest discount.”
Then he describes how it is now: “We have established an environment where our people start to think right away when they have problems: ‘Which university can help us?’ I feel very proud that we have an atmosphere over here in which we work with academics as if they were our outside lab bench.”
So, how has Gerard, who has no staff and no budget (and likes it that way), been able to have such a profound impact? How has he been able to get so many collaborations approved and funded from Heidelberg to Leiden and beyond?
“I think it’s important that you have respect for people. That sometimes is difficult because people have different abilities, different competencies, different ambitions and goals. You have to learn how to make sure you leave them with that – a feeling of being respected for what they do – even if it doesn’t help you get things done that you need to do,” Gerard advises.
“The hardest part of my job is communication, but it’s not only my hardest part. I think for many people communication is essential. I have to explain to others what I want to achieve and convince them. But I like that and I feel always challenged by that. Whatever processes or procedures are in place, I have to talk to the owner of that and say, ‘I want to do this and this for this and this reason.’ If I can justify it, then they say, ‘Do it.’”