Felipe Chibante completed his PhD in chemistry in 1992 at Rice University in Houston, Tex. In the years after, Chibante, who was raised in Fredericton, N.B., didn’t tread the traditional academic path. He stayed in Houston and founded two startups that conducted contract research for government, the oil industry and NASA. That research generated a lot of intellectual property, but most of it was shelved and left unexplored.

At one point, Chibante was helping develop thermally conductive underwear for NASA astronauts. The project required him to use test equipment from Fredericton-based Mathis Instruments. Surprised and impressed to learn that “frontier technology” was emerging from him home province, Chibante gave New Brunswick another look. He took some of the dormant intellectual property, and equipment, from Houston to his home province and launched NanoNB in 2005.

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