UB Faculty Inventors to Be Honored At Reception On Feb. 9

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Inventors who are members of the faculty and staff of the University at Buffalo will be honored during a reception to be held at 4 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 9, in the Center for Tomorrow on the UB North (Amherst) Campus.

Inventors who are named on 24 U.S. patents issued to The Research Foundation of State University of New York in 1997 will receive awards from UB President William R. Greiner recognizing their achievements as inventors of patented devices, materials or drugs.

"It is gratifying and exciting to see the efforts of UB researchers rewarded in this way," said Richard Lohrman, acting director of the Office of Technology Transfer at UB.

The number of patents, which has increased steadily over the past few years, represents the varied fields of reasearch in which UB is involved. "The variety in the subject matter recognized demonstrates the wide-ranging excellence of the research performed here at UB," added Lohrman.

As is the case each year, some of the inventors are being honored this year for patents involving improvements and modifications on inventions for which they previously received patents. The inventors are:

• Linda M. Hall, Ph.D., of Williamsville, professor of biochemical pharmacology, inventor of a process that provides for the isolation of genomic fragments from Drosophila melanogaster encoding tipE protein, which is required for expression of function voltage dependent cation channels. Guoping Feng is co-inventor.

Hall also is being recognized for inventing a process where DNA's encoding voltage-activated cation channels have been cloned and characterized. The cDNA's have been expressed in recombinant host cells, which provide active recombinant protein. Joseph P. Arena, Guoping Feng, Ken Liu, L.H.T. VanDerPloeg, Peiyi Wang and Jeffrey W. Warmke are co-inventors.

• Timothy Murphy, M.D., of East Amherst, professor of medicine and microbiology, who was granted patent protection for compositions and the sequence of the "E" protein, an outer membrane protein of Moraxella cattharalis. The uses of this protein include vaccines and diagnostics. Reva Bushan is co-inventor.

• Abir Mullick, Ph.D., of Williamsville, associate professor of architecture, inventor of an ornamental designed drinking fountain. Michael Osadciw of Rochester, Michael F. LaMonica of Brentwood and Matthew C. Guthrie of Penfield are co-inventors.

Mullick also will be honored as the inventor of a drinking fountain that is freely moveable within a range of positions to provide optimal access and comfort to a user. William Cheung and Jason C. Billig are co-inventors.

• Jonathan J. Hull, Ph.D., former professor of computer science and inventor of a word recognizer that has a probabilistic relaxation process that improves the performance of an image-text-recognition technique by propagating the influence of word collocation statistics. Tao Hong is co-inventor.

• Rocco C. Venuto, M.D., of Williamsville, professor of medicine, inventor of a method to inhibit blood-clot formation in the first segment of a blood vessel by exposing a second segment of the blood vessel to ultrasound. Reinold O.B. Gans is co-inventor.

• Dipankar Talukdar, Ph.D., former research assistant in electrical and computer engineering, Ramalingam Sridhar, Ph.D., of East Amherst, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Victor Demjanenko, Ph.D., of North Tonawanda, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, inventors of a process that considers the problem of thresholding from a clustering point of view, and a novel weight-based clustering method (WCThresh) that is implemented in a neural-network image processor.

• Joseph Gardella, Ph.D., professor of chemistry, and Terrence Vargo, both of Buffalo, inventors of a process for bonding organosilanes, isothiocyanate-containing fluorescent compounds and various proteins that can refunctionalize permanently substituted oxyfluorinated surfaces. These surfaces are useful in the fabrication of biological sensors, devices for separation of cell lines and filtration applications for selective binding of antigens.

• Ernest Hausmann, D.M.D., Ph.D., of Amherst, professor of oral biology; Darold C. Wobschall, Ph.D., of Williamsville, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; Lance Ortman, D.D.S., of Snyder, associate professor and associate chair of restorative dentistry; Kristin M. Allen of Buffalo, research associate, and David S. Odrobina of West Seneca, doctoral candidate, inventors of an apparatus used in serial radiography that provides replicable projection geometry between an energy source, an intraoral target area and an image receptor.

Wobschall also is being honored as the inventor of a planar optic sensor for measuring the optical absorbance spectrum of a wide variety of substances in situ.

• Goran Enhorning, Ph.D., of Buffalo, professor of gynecology-obstetrics, inventor of a system for managing data collected over the course of a pregnancy that allows the physician to make better use of the data in diagnosing and treating potentially pathological conditions. The system also facilitates transfer of patient data to computer memory.

Enhorning also is being honored as the inventor of an apparatus and method for performing broncho-alveolar lavage that uses relatively low pressures to avoid damage, such as over expansion and rupture of airways and alveoli, that can occur when higher pressure is used.

• Bradley P. Fuhrman, M.D., professor of pediatrics and anesthesiology; Mark S. Dowhy, research associate in pediatrics, and Lynn J. Hernan, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics and anesthsiology, all of Buffalo, inventors of a method and apparatus that uses helicopter propellers in various sizes and configurations as pumping mechanisms to improve circulation of liquid solutions between gas-exchange mechanisms and subjects receiving the solutions.

• Deborah D.L. Chung, Ph.D., of East Amherst, Niagara Mohawk Professor of Materials Science and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. The invention involves a particulate carbon complex useful in electrochemical applications, as well as in structural composites.

• Michael K. Landi, M.D., of Snyder, clinical assistant instructor of neurosurgery, inventor of a system, method and apparatus used in surgical applications to selectively illuminate and sight reach specific subsurface parts of a patient's anatomy to guide an incision. Robert M. Lifeso of East Amherst, professor of orthopaedics, is co-inventor.

• Ho-Leung Fung, Ph.D., of Getzville, professor and chair of pharmaceutics, and John A. Bauer, Ph.D., formerly research assistant professor of pharmaceutics, inventors of pharmaceutical compositions in topical or parenteral form containing inorganic nitrites that are effective in treating male impotence and erectile dysfunction through topical or intracavernosal administration.

• Seokjin Kim, formerly of Amherst, former research assistant in electrical and computer engineering, and Ramalingam Sridhar, Ph.D., of East Amherst, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, inventors of the design and operation for local clock control circuits that supply a local clock signal to a controlled block of a digital circuit, in response to an enable signal representative of an enable condition.

• Former UB President Steven B. Sample, now president of the University of Southern California; the late Bonnie Bullough, former dean of the UB School of Nursing, and Patricia A. Burns, former associate professor of nursing, inventors of a perineometer that measures the pressure created by vaginal contractions.

• Janet R. Morrow, Ph.D., of Williamsville, associate professor of chemistry, inventor of a technology that provides the first examples of metal complexes showing catalytic behavior in RNA transesterification under physiological relevant conditions.

• Joseph K. Gong, Ph.D., of Williamsville, associate professor of oral and diagnostic sciences, and Chester A. Glomski, M.D., Ph.D., professor of anatomical sciences, inventors of a method for detecting a mammal's prior exposure to radiation or radiomimetric chemicals.

• Bernard A. Weinstein, Ph.D., of Williamsville, professor of physics, inventor of a diamond-anvil cell assembly of relatively small diameter that may be used in commonly available cryostats with a cell assembly capable of applying pressure of more than 100 kbar. Ruiji Chen, former research assistant in physics, is co-inventor.

• Donald Hickey, M.D., of Amherst, research assistant professor of physiology and clinical assistant professor of neurosurgery, inventor of a non-invasive apparatus and method for obtaining a quantitative determination of mean left-atrial transmural pressure or a quantitative determination of a left-atrial pressure valve.

• Ramalingam Sridhar, Ph.D., of East Amherst, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, inventor of a family of CFET logic circuits useful in wave pipelining, and a method to design the circuits. Xuguang Zhang is co-inventor.