“One thing I’ll always remember, though, is that during this period when we were struggling, a large firm gave us a small order of about $2500. I was able to do a lot with that money back then—it was literally the difference between life and death.”

Several years later, when Polyfiltronics was firmly established as a key player in microplates, Mr. Manns was approached by an Australian researcher. “The young man wanted to use our plates in a specific way, but he was working in a maternity hospital and didn’t have money to modify them. He tried to explain his ideas in e-mail, but that just didn’t work. So I asked, ‘what would it cost?’ He said, ‘about 1500 dollars.’ I sent him a check for 1500 US dollars, and he was ecstatic! Within a year and a half, he’d developed a new product for testing various diseases in Southeast Asia, and then went on to launch a big company.”

These two events, says Mr. Manns, “gave me the idea that when you’re working at a very small stage, you don’t need a million dollars in venture capital; you just need a certain amount of money to keep you going.” And it was this idea, fueled by Mr. Mann’s desire to “give something back” in gratitude for his own success, that led, in 1997, to the establishment of the PolyPops (originally PolyWhat, to reflect the purchase of Polyfiltronics by Whatman) awards. Mr. Manns convinced his friend Clyde Keaton, whose father—like Mr. Manns—had empirical, rather than academic, experience in plastics, to contribute. The foundation’s new name, PolyPops, is a combination of “Poly”filtronics and “Pops,” as Mr. Keaton’s father was affectionately called.

Freedom First
The purpose of the PolyPops Foundation awards is to “provide a window of opportunity for researchers who may not be recognized by industry,” Mr. Manns explains. “Hopefully, this will boost their morale and allow them to do something more with their projects.” He notes that his philosophy is similar to that of 3M

Mr. Manns should know. When he was working as a consultant in the early ‘80s, a client complained that one of the photo-bottom microplates was leaking. “Although I had designed the plastic part of the plate, I didn’t know anything about the filtration at that point,” he recalls. “But I checked it out, and came up with a design that eliminated the cross talk. I offered it to my client—an established company—and they said, ‘no thanks.’ I held onto the idea because nobody else wanted it, and shortly thereafter, another client commissioned me to develop a plate with no cross talk! And so I was able to file my first patent, in 1985, by solving my client’s problem.”

3M’s McKnight also introduced the concept “that all employees could use up to 10% of their time going on a wild goose chase and developing any ideas they wanted to,” continues Mr. Manns. “That’s how the company grew, by giving people freedom to think. The result was innovation-Post-It notes, Scotch tape, and myriad other products that are commonplace today.”

In keeping with this concept, the PolyPops Foundation takes a hands-off, no-strings-attached approach—even as it expands, next year, to provide some of its grantees with more extensive support. “We’ll not only give awards or grants; we’ll actually take on projects to develop other people’s ideas and bring them to the pilot production level at no cost to the researcher,” Mr. Manns explains. “The researcher can repay the foundation when he makes a success of it, and that will keep the foundation going in perpetuity.

Eventually, control of the foundation will be transferred to the Institute of Materials in the UK, where Mr. Manns has been a Fellow for more than 35 years. But meanwhile, staying actively involved, he says, “allows me, in my retirement, to keep up with the industry and get involved in some of the projects without having any commercial interest.”

For more information on Roy Manns and the PolyPops Awards, call 781.834.7448 or visit www.microplate.org. or click For a list of past SBS PolyPops winners.