Kevin Walters: Vitamin D-fortified food changed universities forever

The story of technology transfer begins with Harry Steenbock’s discovery of how to create vitamin D- fortified food. Steenbock, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, established the first-ever university tech transfer office not only to license his own invention to industry but also to support his colleagues present and future to do the same.

This year, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) celebrates its 100th anniversary. But while WARF has forever changed how universities go about creating real-world applications for their research, it wasn’t all smooth sailing: because WARF was created decades before the Bayh-Dole Act (which gives US universities the right to exploit their IP), there were several run-ins with the government, regulators and industry both at home and internationally.

Kevin Walters wrote his PhD on the history of WARF and now serves as the organisation’s public affairs associate. He explains why all of this could only have happened in a state known for its dairy industry and how Steenbock’s childhood days on a farm meant he managed to do something that paediatricians did not.