By Peter Behr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 28, 1998; Page C01

The presidents of three leading Washington area universities showed off some prize results of their research partnerships with technology companies yesterday, saying the region could create many more such companies if it did a better job of sharing its knowledge.

The meeting was called by the presidents of the University of Maryland at College Park, George Mason University in Fairfax and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The point was to dramatize the need for closer cooperation to help the Washington-Baltimore region compete against areas such as California's Silicon Valley, Boston and Austin that have powerful links between universities and businesses.

But one of the sponsors, University of Maryland President William E. Kirwan, said he is frustrated that while the region has the capability to become one of the nation's entrepreneurial hot spots, it has not lived up to that potential. "Although we've come a long way, we are not where we could be," Kirwan said. "We have to ask why."

"Part of the problem is our own parochial regionalism," he said, indicating the political walls that divide Baltimore from the Maryland suburbs and Maryland from the District and Northern Virginia.

The "Three Presidents' Summit" at College Park attracted about 50 senior corporate executives, about half of those invited, but a large enough turnout to encourage the project's continuation, George Mason President Alan G. Merten said.

Future summits are expected to deal with other regional issues, including elementary school education and shortages of technology workers, Merten said.

The executives in the audience generally appeared to support the sponsors' regional agenda. "It's preaching to the choir," a participant said.

William R. Brody, president of Johns Hopkins, said future summits would have to involve different audiences as well as other educators. "There's nobody here from state government," Brody said.

Summit sponsors sought to show off some leading-edge industrial research ventures at their institutions to bolster claims about the Washington area's unrecognized research and development credentials: that the best work at the three universities measures up to that of Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other famous institutions, sponsors said.

One of the companies that was showcased yesterday, MetaMorphix Inc. of Baltimore, is developing protein-based products created through genetics research at Johns Hopkins University. The products can be used to repair human tissue, combat neuromuscular disorders and dramatically increase muscle mass in livestock.

"Clearly, the technology itself is why the company exists," said Edwin Quattlebaum, interim president of four-year-old MetaMorphix.

The University of Maryland was represented by Hughes Network Systems, a Montgomery County company that has collaborated with College Park researchers in developing complex voice and data transmission technologies that draw simultaneously on satellite, fiber-optic and cable systems.

George Mason researchers are helping a group of companies led by BDM International Inc. in McLean to perfect a method for transmitting huge flows of data between computer microprocessors more rapidly by using light signals instead of wires.

Although the work is funded by the Defense Department, two of the projects' partners are entrepreneurial start-ups that hope to commercialize the technology, said George Mason Prof. Michael W. Haney.