BIOSCIENCE Into Business will be the theme for next month's major showcase of the region's Bioscience Forum.

More than 200 delegates, including academic researchers looking to commercialise their research and academic entrepreneurs who have already set up ventures, will converge from all over Britain and the world on the Central Science Laboratory in Sand Hutton for the two days, starting on October 31.

The annual forum, run by the White Rose University Consortium consisting of the universities of York, Sheffield and Leeds, will have a range of speakers.

They include Prof Dianna Bowles of the Centre For Novel Agricultural Products, at the University of York, who will talk about knowledge-sharing between academia and industry, and Dr Sue Harris, of Smith & Nephew, in York, who will discuss how her firm sources new products and technologies.

Bioscience York will be sponsoring a £2,000 prize for a business plan competition for young bioscience companies featuring in the forum's technology showcase.

Among those demonstrating their products and research will be two York companies, Paraytac Ltd, a scientific instrument company, and MatriCal Inc, the top US-based supplier of tailor-made hi-tech chemical libraries for bioscience laboratories, which in May chose York as its European base.