VOLUME 33, NUMBER 29 |
THURSDAY,
June 27, 2002 |
SUNY recognizes
UB inventors
22 hailed as being among the outstanding inventors
within the state system
By SUE
WUETCHER
Reporter Editor
Twenty-two
inventors affiliated with UB have been recognized by SUNY as being among
the outstanding inventors within the state university system.
The
UB inventors represented more than one third of the 64 SUNY faculty and
staff members from campuses across the system who received awards for
their achievements from Chancellor Robert L. King at a ceremony held in
Albany last month.
"Faculty
at the State University of New York conduct some of the most sophisticated
and complex research in the worldresearch that improves our quality
of life and oftentimes saves lives," King said at the awards ceremony.
"To a growing extent, the scientific and technical developments emanating
from that research are being translated into new American products, markets
and jobs."
Noting
that UB researchers accounted for more than one-third of the inventors
honored by SUNY, Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi said UB is proud that its
researchers "swept these awards."
"UB's
science and technology is of the highest quality and it is a very high
priority for the university to commercialize this intellectual property,"
Capaldi added. "Our faculty's achievements in this area are truly impressive
and we appreciate SUNY's recognition."
Since
1996-97, there have been 340 invention disclosures by UB faculty and staff,
102 U.S. patents have been awarded and 201 license agreements have been
entered with businesses throughout the United States, according to a new
economic impact study prepared by UB and released earlier this year. UB
has entered 19 licenses with companies in New York State, including licenses
to three new business enterprises started with UB inventions.
The
SUNY inventors were honored in four categories: "outstanding inventor,"
"entrepreneur," "first-time patent" and "first-time invention disclosure."
Eight
UB faculty members were honored as "outstanding inventors," either because
they have received multiple patents, their invention has brought in considerable
licensing income or their invention is seen as significant in other ways.
They are:
- Frank
V. Bright, UB Distinguished Professor and professor and associate
chair of the Department of Chemistry. Bright has submitted nine new
technology disclosures and has been awarded two U.S. patents. In addition,
two provisional applications and an international application are pending.
Combined, these patents and patent applications are building toward
a new generation of biosensors that simultaneously can detect and quantify
multiple chemical and biochemical species in a single sample. These
biosensors are applicable to a wide variety of problems in medicine,
remote assessment and monitoring scenarios, and human space travel.
- Deborah
D. L. Chung, Niagara Mohawk Professor of Materials Research, director
of the Composite Materials Research Lab and professor of mechanical
and aerospace engineering. Her research has covered many materials,
including lightweight structural materials, construction, smart materials,
adsorption, battery electrode, solar cell and electronic packaging materials.
She is the inventor of smart concrete, for which she was awarded a patent.
Chung has submitted 70 disclosures, has 15 patents issued and has one
provisional application pending. Two of her patented technologies have
been licensed.
- David
G. Hangauer, associate professor of chemistry. Hangauer's research
efforts in drug discovery have resulted in three invention disclosures,
all of which have been converted into either full or provisional patent
applications. He developed and teaches the world's first academic course
in combinatorial chemistry, a new technique that has taken the pharmaceutical
industry by storm. Combinatorial chemistry is a chemical-synthesis technique
where hundreds or even thousands of new chemical compounds are synthesized
at once. Compared to traditional methods, it allows medicinal chemists
to discover potential new drugs at what seems like warp speed, which
is particularly important in light of the many new drug targets envisioned
now that the human genome has been sequenced.
- George
C. Lee, director of the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake
Engineering Research (MCEER), Samuel P. Capen Professor of Engineering,
and senior university advisor for technology. Lee's research, which
focuses on civil engineering, earthquake engineering and engineering
education, has resulted in four U.S. patents, with four international
applications now pending. His patented invention, "Method and Apparatus
for Real-Time Structural Parameter Modification," is licensed to Enidine,
Inc., a global manufacturer of energy absorption, vibration isolation
and motion control products.
- Claes
Lundgren, professor of physiology and director of the Center for
Research and Education in Special Environments. Lundgren has been awarded
(with co-inventors) more than 120 patents pertaining to, among other
areas, human engineering (breathing gear for divers) and the pharmaceutical
fields (NicoretteR for smoking withdrawal). Since joining the UB faculty
in 1974, Lundgren has submitted six new technology disclosures and has
been awarded three patents, two of which are licensed to Sonus Pharmaceuticals
and one to a Swiss company, Idiag AG (equipment for respiratory muscle
training).
- Timothy
F. Murphy, professor of medicine and microbiology. During his distinguished
career at UB, Murphy, who conducts research in the area of vaccine development,
has submitted 11 disclosures. Nineteen U.S. and foreign patents have
been issued and many more are pending. He is working on a vaccine that
targets a bacteria that is the second most common cause of ear infections
in children and a leading cause of recurrent infection in patients with
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
- Frederick
Sachs, UB Distinguished Professor of Physiology and Biophysics.
Sachs, whose general research objective is the understanding of electrical
processes in cells, has submitted more than 35 invention disclosures.
In a recent study published in Nature, Sachs reported that a
protein isolated from the venom of a Chilean tarantula shows promise
as a drug to prevent and treat atrial fibrillation, a chaotic beating
of the heart that affects 25 million Americans. Several companies are
considering the technology for licensing.
- Sargur
N. Srihari, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer
Science and Engineering and director of the Center of Excellence for
Document Analysis and Recognition(CEDAR). Handwriting recognition software
developed by CEDAR, under sponsorship by the United States Postal Service,
is used in all postal processing centers in the U.S., with similar systems
being deployed at Australia Post and UK Royal Mail. Srihari has submitted
15 new technology disclosures, from which six patents have been issued.
Five
UB faculty members were honored as "entrepreneurs" who have demonstrated
entrepreneurial spirit that enabled them to move their inventions from
the research laboratory into wide-scale use. They are:
- Edmund
A. Egan, professor of pediatrics and physiology, and Bruce A.
Holm, senior vice provost and professor of pediatrics, pharmacology
and toxicology, and gynecology-obstetrics. Egan and Holm developed the
commercial surfactant-replacement therapy INFASURF neonatal, which received
new drug approval from the Food and Drug Administration in 1997 as a
life-saving drug that has been demonstrated to reduce the morbidity
and mortality of premature newborn infants. INFASURF adult is now in
phase II clinical trials. INFASURF drugs are manufactured by ONY, Inc.,
located in the UB Technology Incubator, part of the university's Office
of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach.
- John
Eisner, associate professor of pediatric and community dentistry.
As associate dean for information resources in the School of Dental
Medicine from 1993-2000, Eisner started The Academic Software Collaboration
(TASC) as a non-profit software developer under the UB umbrella. In
2001, the TASC group spun out into a for-profit, independent start-up
company called Academic Management Systems. AMS is expanding to license
its software to all major academic institutions in the United States
and abroad. UB has both an equity and royalty stake with this company.
- Joseph
K. Gong, associate professor emeritus of oral diagnostic sciences.
Gong has been issued two U.S. patents for developing a blood test to
measure an individual's total cumulative exposure to radiation over
their lifetime, even at very low doses. He recently formed a new company,
Nuclear & Environmental Safety Technology (NEST), to market the blood
test.
- Troy
Wood, associate professor of chemistry. Wood founded Nanogenesys
Inc. to produce miniaturized devices for conducting biomedical analysis
that were developed in his laboratories. These robust nanospray emitters
use a revolutionary, conductive polymer film for biomedical and pharmaceutical
applications.
Two
UB faculty members and one staff member were recognized for receiving
their first patents in 2001. They are:
- Donald
Henderson, professor of communicative disorders and sciences and
co-director of the Center for Hearing and Deafness. Henderson was issued
his first patent for developing a method to prevent and/or reverse inner
ear damage due to noise or toxins.
- Wesley
L. Hicks, Jr., associate professor of otolaryngology and neurosurgery
and attending head and neck surgeon at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.
Hicks was issued both his first and second patents in 2001 for developing
wound-healing material for the trachea. His invention is potentially
applicable to multiple wound healing applications.
- Timothy
Koloski, research assistant in the Department of Chemistry. Koloski
was issued a patent for his invention entitled "Fluorocarbon End-Capped
Polymers and Method of Synthesis." The technology, which can be applied
to the development of wound-healing membranes, received second-place
honors in the 2001 Niagara Frontier Intellectual Property Law Association
Annual Inventor of the Year Awards.
Seven
UB faculty members submitted their first invention disclosures in 2001.
They are:
- Sebastiano
Andreana, research fellow in the Department of Periodontics and
Endodontics and a clinical assistant professor of periodontology and
oral and maxillofacial surgery; Libuse A. Bobek, associate professor
of oral biology; Rosemary Dziak, professor of oral biology, and
Giuseppe Intini, clinical instructor in the Department of Oral
Biology, who disclosed a unique biomaterial to be used in bone regeneration.
This invention can be useful in the majority of clinical situations,
as well as in such future applications as bone gene-therapy procedures.
- Harsh
Deep Chopra, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering;
Susan Zonglu Hua, research associate professor of mechanical
and aerospace engineering, and Frederick Sachs, UB Distinguished
Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, who disclosed a new scheme for
microfluidic systems. The technique uses bubbles electrolyzed from the
fluid flowing through the microchannels. The bubbles can be used to
make valves, pumps, fluid mixers, fluid separators and fluid switches,
among other devices.
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