University of Wisconsin-based spin-off, SonoPlot’s innovative technology prints the finest of details using different shapes for research models.

Designed back in the early 2000s in a UW lab, the technology behind SonoPlot’s company can print things so small they are invisible to the naked eye.

Since its creation and early development in the engineering labs at UW, the core technology for SonoPlot has essentially stayed the same, Brad Larson, president of SonoPlot said. The machine itself uses Ultrasonics in order to dispense tiny amounts of liquid to print materials on a microscale.

The technology is used to print materials like DNA, proteins, carbon nanotubes and nanometallic silver, according to a SonoPlot statement.

Larson a UW graduate, earned his masters and Ph.D.  in material sciences at UW. Larson worked alongside Max Lagally, a materials science and engineering professor who helped Larson establish a company for the product.

“We recognized there might be commercial applications for this, so we dipped our toes into the water by entering this tech in a business plan competition at UW,” Larson said.

Though their product did not win the competition, Larson said their product gained enough interest to consider exploring the possibilities of commercializing it.

Lagally said entering these competitions was only the first step, the next couple of steps to commercializing this product was finding money and creating a management structure.

Because he had commercialized a product before, Lagally was able to obtain money from a company he knew, as well as help Larson receive grants from the government.

Lagally said he worked in an executive position for the company as it slowly developed before relinquishing his position to someone else. He still remains a primary shareholder in the company.

In recent years the product has continued to develop and enhance its technology. A newly released product system now allows for SonoPlot’s technology to be more accessible to a broader audience, Larson said.

In addition, the SonoPlot technology that was originally designed for printing DNA and proteins is now also used to print electronics and prototyping models which many researchers work with, Larson said.

“We had a lot of people come to us and say that these systems would be excellent for printing electrons or prototyping a lot of models that researchers were working on, and that ended up being our dominant market,” Larson said.

Larson urged students and future entrepreneurs to take advantages of the resources UW offers in the forms of competitions and business planning.

Larson said the competitions UW offers are especially helpful in determining the interest in a product.

“[You] need to go explore and see whether your product has legs. It’s telling to the winners of those competitions whether their product may be commercialized,” Larson said.

Larson said the UW business school can be a tool for designing a business plan. The business plan helped him learn beyond the engineering aspect of the product.

But above all, Lagally said students must struggle with failure before they can achieve success.

“The best future success is a failure,” Lagally said. “Entrepreneurs tell you that all the time — that you have to fail to be successful, you have to learn what to do right and if you haven’t failed then you don’t really know half the problem.”