Preparing for the startup from a professor lab

Consider the following three scenarios. 1. Someone is doing discovery work and wants to connect discovery work to industry and business. 2. Some thing is already catching on (say internet) and you want to work on something at the core of useful business; 3. You have already made something and wants to connect to some important business. Examples: (1) Find a professor in a university who is doing some research, consider how the research can be turned into anything related to business; (2) A professor's technology, say Prof. Mirkin's DNA detection technology, can it be used for any business or start any business? (3) Researchers at Stanford has been working on data warehousing and digital information, or research in transistors at the Bell Labs, how to stretch your imagination to see the future in google and internet?