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According to Truman, other entrepreneurship contests exist, but few focus exclusively on the life sciences, and organizers typically rely on contestants to source their own inventions.This contest "allowed us to focus on our inventions and stimulating start-ups around them," says Thomas Stackhouse, associate director of NCI′s Technol. Transfer Center. "It′s taking a more proactive role than we have in the past." The ten inventions featured in the Breast Cancer Start-up Challenge are ideas looking for champions.One of those inventions, for example, is a class of toxins derived from anti-tumor mols. called azonafides.These toxins could be attached to an antibody or small mol. designed to target cancer cells.In one unpublished study, researchers treated lung cancer cells with either the antibody therapy Herceptin (trastuzumab) or trastuzumab linked to one of these toxins.Herceptin alone destroyed only 46% of the cells, whereas the toxin conjugate killed off nearly 99% of the cells, says Nadya Tarasova, a chemist who came up with the invention at NCI about a decade ago.Many toxins exist, but most lack the capacity to attach to antibodies that target cancer, according to Tarasova.Over the years, she has received a few inquiries about her toxin, "but they didn′t really go anywhere," she says.Tarasova might have developed the idea herself, but scientists employed by the US National Institutes of Health are prohibited from holding stock in pharmaceutical or biotech companies or receiving compensation from them.Only about half of the inventions in NCI′s portfolio have been licensed, which is a shame, according to Truman, who calls them an "awesome deal." The National Institutes of Health offers small start-ups exclusive licensing agreements that require only $2,000 up front and royalty payments of just 1.5% of revenues.There are no addnl. payments until a company has a ′liquidity event′ such as an initial public offering on the stock market.Those moving ahead in the competition say that the real reward of participating in the challenge is the exposure to increase their chances of capitalizing on the NCI inventions. "One of the most valuable things I think [the contest] gave us is credibility," says John Kuelper, a contestant from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and a member of one of the winning teams. "When we reached out to mentors, I think they were much more receptive than they would have been if we were just a random group of students trying to launch a business."