A worm-like robot that wriggles and writhes inside the human body where it can perform minimally invasive biopsies is among the technologies developed at Carnegie Mellon University that could soon be in the marketplace.

The "worm" is the brainchild of Innovention, one of 50 start-up companies that have spun off from the university since 1993. Of those, 70 percent have remained in the Pittsburgh region, university officials said yesterday.

The university was touting its prowess as a regional innovator and start-up company generator at a daylong conference designed to help local economic development officials learn more about how university-bred technologies can go from the lab to the marketplace.

The conference was hosted by CMU's Center for Technology Transfer, which is charged with bringing inventions created at the university to market, via licenses to university-related start-ups or to established firms looking to develop new products.

But getting technology into the hands of companies is a challenging process, said Dr. Rob A. Lowe, a university researcher and economics professor. In addition to making sure the research can become a commercial-ready product, the university determines whether the technology is best suited to a start-up or to an established company and its market potential.

The technology being fine-tuned at month-old Innovention has a few possibilities.

The so-called surgical snake represents an improvement on the existing rigid tools that surgeons now use, said Alon Wolf, one of the CMU researchers developing the technology. "You're operating with chopsticks," he said.

Uses for the robotic technology found in the surgical snake go beyond medicine. For example, larger versions can be used to conduct delicate search and rescue missions for survivors of collapsed buildings.

Technologies such as Dr. Wolf's that can span numerous uses and industries are known as "platform" technologies because of their broad-ranging market potential. CMU tech transfer officials said platform technologies are well-suited to launching start-ups because of the wide-range of revenue possibilities.

The technology transfer office spins out an average of five firms per year, Dr. Lowe added, with CMU licensing technology to seven firms in fiscal year 2005. The university expects to create seven to 10 start-ups by the end of June, he said.