Perched on a high lab table at University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus sits what looks like a futuristic copy machine with a bright blue light emanating from the middle.

The device at CU’s Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences lets researchers study thousands of compounds at a time that could one day turn into drugs.

On a recent afternoon, Dr. Brian Reid, director of the school’s high-throughput screening core facility, used the device to study various compounds interacting with the heart. The research is part of a collaboration with cardiology researchers aimed at finding drugs to combat a particular form of heart failure.

“There aren’t any drugs for this right now,” Reid said.

That kind of science — partnerships between disciplines to look for medical breakthroughs — is something state officials want to see more of, and research that can one day be marketable enough to create jobs.

Last month, the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade announced more than $3 million in grants aimed at helping academic researchers and bioscience companies take research from labs like those at Skaggs to market.

Organizations based in Aurora, Skaggs and CID4, received two of the grants.

In the case of researchers at Skaggs, the $410,000 grant is aimed at helping the high throughput/content screening core facility for drug discovery, which more than 100 researchers and companies have used to advance science and help to secure intellectual property, according to OEDIT.

Dr. David Ross, chairman of the department of pharmaceutical sciences in the school of pharmacy, said this particular research is important because it allows scientists to compare thousands of compounds quickly against a specific disease. That leads to the discoveries that can one day become life-saving drugs.

Grants like the one from OEDIT are crucial to making sure those breakthroughs can one day benefit the state, he said.

“If we didn’t capitalize on those, then those opportunities would go out of state,” he said. “This provides a way to optimize the resources that you need to capitalize on those innovations within the state of Colorado.”

At CID4, which stands for Colorado Institute for Drug, Device and Diagnostic Development, the grant totaled more than $1.3 million. The agency helps early stage bioscience companies get their companies off the ground and, according to OEDIT, the money will “support operations and the development and management of life-science discoveries.”

Kevin Smith, CID4’s executive director, said the grant shows that the organization, which now has eight companies in its portfolio, is having success.

“It’s a validation of the CID4 model,” he said.

So far, CID4 has invested $2.5 million into its companies, which have in turn raised an additional $22 million. For bioscience start ups, which have at times struggled since the recession to find private investors to help them through the final stages before profitability, that’s significant.

Smith said the grants show that the state is serious about making sure Colorado’s bioscience industry takes off, and making sure it includes partnerships between research institutions and private industry.

“The whole idea is to make sure everybody who has an interest in the entire development cycle are talking to each other as early as possible,” he said.

The other two grant recipients were the Colorado Center for Drug Discovery at Colorado State University, which received $750,000, and the BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado, which received $624,752.

April Giles, president and CEO of the Colorado BioScience Association, said that from the industry’s perspective, the grants are hugely important because they can bridge that gap between the research lab and the market place.

“This allows them to really look at drug discovery in a way that pharmacies or bioscience companies would utilize in a commercial way,” she said.