Reception to Honor UB's Inventors, Entrepreneurs

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo and its Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR) will recognize the research and commercialization achievements of faculty members at the annual Inventors and Entrepreneurs Reception to be held from 4-6 p.m. May 5 in The Buffalo Club, 388 Delaware Ave.

The reception will honor faculty members in the categories of U.S. Patents, Visionary Innovators, Entrepreneurial Spirit and Incubator Awards. In addition, a Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Robert J. Genco, D.D.S., Ph.D., in recognition of his service to students in and out of the classroom and his extraordinary achievement and leadership in his field.

Incubator Awards will honor a company that joined the UB Technology Incubator program in 2007 and a company that graduated from the program last year. The new company is Sprung-brett RDI, Inc., a mechatronics and advance systems company currently developing a new class of actuator for aerospace application, motion control and traction applications. The graduate is Teeter Marketing Services, LLC, which provides highly responsive, integrated technical and marketing services for companies in the field of high performance materials.

Entrepreneurial Spirit awards, recognizing UB faculty and staff members who founded a start-up company based on UB technology during 2007, will be presented to Frank V. Bright, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, and Jerome Schentag, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, for the creation of TheraSyn Sensors Inc., and Donald Jacobs, Center for Applied Technologies in Education, Graduate School of Education, for 3rdL Corporation.

The following faculty members will be recognized for being named on U.S. patents during 2007:

* Chunming Qiao, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Vishal Anand, Yizhi Xiong and Xiaojun Cao, all formerly of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, patent 7,162,632, Efficient Optical Network Design Using Multi-Granular Optical Cross-Connects with Wavelength Band Switching.

* Paras N. Prasad, Department of Chemistry, and David J. McRae, Derrick W. Lucey and Orville T. Beachley, all formerly of the Department of Chemistry, patent 7,193,098, Process for Producing Semiconductor Nanocrystal Cores, Core-Shell, Core-Buffer-Shell and Multiple Layer Systems in a Non-Coordinating Solvent Utilizing In-situ Surfactant Generation.

* Michael R. Detty and Frank V. Bright of the Department of Chemistry, and Michael D. Drake and Ying Tang, formerly of the Department of Chemistry, patent 7,244,295, Hybrid Anti-Fouling Coating Compositions and Methods for Preventing the Fouling of Surfaces Subjected to a Marine Environment.

* Eli Ruckenstein, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Yun Hang Hu, formerly of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, patent 7,250,146, Method for Producing a Reversible Hydrogen Storage Medium with High Storage Capacity and Ultrafast Kinetics.

* Oleh Pankewycz, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, patent 7,253,148, Novel Human Gene with Immunoregulatory and Antiproliferative Properties.

* Frederick Sachs, Thomas Suchyna and Phillip Gottlieb of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, patent 7,259,145, Mechanically Activated Channel Blocker.

* Libuse A. Bobek, Department of Oral Biology, School of Dental Medicine, patent 7,271,239, D-Isomers of Antimicrobial Peptide.

* Thomas Guttuso, Department of Neurology, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, patent 7,288,525, Method of Lowering Serum Homocysteine.

* Brydon J.B. Grant, formerly from the Department of Medicine, and Jacek Dmochowski, formerly from the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, patent 7,309,314, Prediction of AHI from Overnight Pulse Oximetry.

The following faculty members will be recognized as Visionary Innovators for developing technologies that were licensed to outside companies during 2007:

* Huw M.L. Davies, Department of Chemistry, James Manning, Department of Chemistry, and Ravisekhara Reddy, Xing Dai, Abbas Walji, Tadamichi Nagashima and Timothy Gregg, all formerly of the Department of Chemistry, Rhodium-based Catalysts and Methods for Making and Using Same, to Dirhodium Technologies.

* Huw M.L. Davies, Department of Chemistry, James Manning of the Department of Chemistry, and Ravisekhara Reddy, Xing Dai, Abbas Walji, Tadamichi Nagashima, Timothy Gregg, all formerly of the Department of Chemistry, Rhodium-based Catalysts and Methods for Making and Using Same to Strem Chemicals, Inc.

* Huw M.L. Davies, Department of Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry, and Ravisekhara Reddy, formerly of the Department of Chemistry, New Chiral Catalysts for Use in Enantioselective Synthesis, to Strem Chemicals, Inc.

* Edward G. Niles, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Plasmid Encoding an Expressible Gene for Vaccinia 2'-O-Methyltransferase, to Epicentre Technologies Corp.

* James Leahy, Jonathan Leahy and James L. Peron, Center for Assistive Technology, School of Public Health and Health Professions, and Robyn Washousky, formerly of the Center for Assistive Technology, Automated Pill Crusher to Pill Crusher Ventures.

* Sargur N. Srihari, Chen Huang, Gregory Ball, Harish Srinivasan, all from the Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition (CEDAR), CEDARABIC Transcript Mapping Tool to CedarTech.

* Rossman Giese, Department of Geology, College of Arts and Sciences, Paul Kostyniak and Joseph Syracuse, Department of Biotechnical and Clinical Laboratory Sciences, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Patricia A. Costanzo, formerly of the Department of Geology, Antimicrobial Compositions to BioClay Corporation.

* Donald J. Jacobs, Center for Applied Technologies in Education, and Paulette J. Freyer, formerly of Center for Applied Technologies in Education, NYLearns and Web-based Tools for Teachers to 3rdL Corporation.

* Vipin Chaudhary, Mohammed Alam, Christopher Gammage, Suryaprakash Kompalli, and Mohammed Yaqub, all of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, A Versatile 3-D Image Viewer for Diagnosis and Interventions, Medcotek, Inc.

* Frank V. Bright and Joseph Gardella, Department of Chemistry; Alexander N. Cartwright and Albert H. Titus, Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Robert Hard, Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; Wesley Hicks, Jr., Department of Otolaryngology, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; Venugopal Govindaraju, Department of Computer Science and Engineering; Jeffrey D. Jordan, A. Neal Watkins, Brett R. Wenner, Eun Jeong Cho, William G. Holthoff, Elizabeth C. Cornell, Gary A. Baker and Meagan A. Hughes, formerly of the Department of Chemistry, Sensor Array Platforms to Senz-It, Inc.

* Frank V. Bright and Joseph Gardella, Department of Chemistry; Alexander N. Cartwright and Albert H. Titus, Department of Electrical Engineering; Robert Hard, Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences; Wesley Hicks, Jr., Department of Otolaryngology; Venugopal Govindaraju, Department of Computer Science & Engineering; Jeffrey D. Jordan, A. Neal Watkins, Brett R. Wenner, Eun Jeong Cho, William G. Holthoff, Elizabeth C. Cornell, Gary A. Baker and Meagan A. Hughes, all formerly of the Department of Chemistry, Sensor Array Platforms to TheraSyn Sensors Inc.

* Robert M. Straubinger and Sathy Balu-Iyer, both Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Eric Mayhew and Amarnath Sharma, both formerly of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Liposomal Taxane Formulations to Tempo Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

* Tarunraj Singh, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Jerk Limited Time Delay Filter to Gilead Science Institute.

* Chunming Qiao, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Dahai Xu, Yizhi Xiong, Xiaojun Cao and Vishal Anand, all formerly of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Optical Networks and Survivable Networks to Gilead Science Institute.

* Jonathon Hull and Tao Hong, both formerly of the Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition (CEDAR), OCR Method and Apparatus Using Image Equivalents to Gilead Science Institute

* Hiroaki Suga, Neil Bonzagni, Dimitrios Kourouklis, Nick Lee, Hiroshi Murakami, Hirohide Saito, all formerly of the Department of Chemistry, Aminoacylation of Transfer RNA by Ribozymes to Peptidream Inc.

* A. Joshua Wand, formerly from the Department Chemistry, Jeffrey L. Urbauer, fomerly from the Department of Biochemistry, and Mark R. Ehrhardt, formerly from Department of Chemistry, High Resolution NMR Spectroscopy to Daedalus Innovations LLC.