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By SUE WUETCHER

Published: March 17, 2010

Thenkurussi “Kesh” Kesavadas, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and founder of Simulated Surgical Systems LLC, received the 2009 UB Entrepreneurial Spirit Award on Monday at the university’s annual Inventors and Entrepreneurs Reception.

The award recognizes researchers who founded a company to license a UB technology.

Simulated Surgical Systems is marketing the Robotic Surgery Simulator (RoSS), one of the world’s first simulators that closely approximates the “touch and feel” of the da Vinci™ robotic surgical system, the most widely used system of its kind in the world,

The RoSS was invented by Kesavadas and Khurshid A. Guru, director of the Center for Robotic Surgery at Roswell Park Cancer Institute and attending surgeon in RPCI’s Department of Urology.

The SUNY Research Foundation and Health Research Inc., the technology transfer arm of RPCI, jointly licensed the RoSS technology to Simulated Surgical Systems.

Simulated Surgical Systems is the second Western New York company Kesavadas has co-founded as a result of UB research. He also is a co-founder of Tactus Technologies, based in Getzville, a provider of virtual reality, visualization and simulation products and services.

Kesavadas was one of XX UB inventors honored at the reception, which celebrated faculty members who worked to commercialize their technology in 2009.

The event is sponsored by the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR).

Twenty-three current and former faculty members were recognized for being named on newly issued patents during 2009, and another 13 inventors, including Kesavadas, where honored as “visionary innovators,” whose technologies were licensed to an industrial partner.

The following UB inventors were named on patents in 2009:

• Yiping Shao, formerly of Nuclear Medicine, patent 7,482,593, Method to Determine the Depth-of-Interaction Function for PET Detectors.

• Hiroaki Suga and Yigong Bu, both formerly of Chemistry, patent 7,498,292, Combinatorial Libraries of Autoinducer Analogs, Autoinducer Agonists and Antagonists, and Methods of Use Thereof. Suga also was named on patent 7,622,248, Ribozymes with Broad tRNA Aminoacylation Activity. Collaborators are Hiroshi Murakami and Hirohide Saito, also formerly of Chemistry.

• Huw M. L. Davies and Timothy Gregg, both formerly of Chemistry, patent 7,501,453, Cyclopropanes with Central Nervous System Activity.

• Bradley P. Fuhrman and Mark S. Dowhy, both of Pediatrics, patent 7,503,325, Device and Method of Partially Separating Gas. Fuhrman and Dowhy also were named on patent 7,533,669, Gas Delivery System and Method.

• Donald Hickey, Physiology and Biophysics, patent 7,527,599, Method of Determining Cardiac Indicators.

• Jui H. Wang, Chemistry, and Long Shen, Medicine, with collaborator Xioalan Chen, formerly of Chemistry, patent 7,528,117, High Efficacy Antisense RI-Alpha PKA Poly-DNP Oligoribonucleotides.

• James Leahy, Center for Assistive Technology, with collaborators Jonathan Leahy and James Peron, Center for Assistive Technology, and Robyn Washousky, formerly of the Center for Assistive Technology, patent 7,543,770, Automated Pill Crusher.

• Fady K. Baddoura, Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, patent 7,566,443, Method for Diagnosis of Chronic Allograft Rejection.

• Joseph C. Mollendorf, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, with collaborators Roger Teagarden, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Peter Kovachi and Chee Main Heam, both formerly of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, patent 7,568,712, Height and Width Adjustable Saddle Sling Seat Walker with Controllable Directional Tracking and Optional Arm Supports.

• Sargur N. Srihari and Venu Govindaraju, both of the Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition (CEDAR), and collaborators Yong-Chul Shin, Sangjik Lee, Sung-Hyuk Cha, Catalin I. Tomai, Bin Zhang, Ajay Shekhawat, Dave Bartnik, Wen-Jann Yang, Srirangaraj Setlur, Phil Kilinskas, Fred Kunderman, Xia Liu, Zhixin Shi and Ramanaprasad Vemulapati, all formerly of CEDAR, patent 7,580,551, Method and Apparatus for Analyzing and/or Comparing Handwritten and/or Biometric Samples.

• Albert H. Titus, Electrical Engineering, and collaborators Kiriti Bhagavathula, formerly of Electrical Engineering, and Christopher Mullin, a non-UB inventor, patent 7,586,079, Low Power Glare Sensor.

• Thomas Szyperski, Chemistry, and collaborator David Parish, formerly of Chemistry patent 7,586,306, Simultaneously Cycled NMR Spectroscopy.

• Frank V. Bright, Chemistry, patent 7,598,087, Protein Imprinted Polymers with Integrated Emission Sites.

• Paschalis Alexandridis, Chemical and Biological Engineering, and collaborators Georgios N. Karanikolos and Triantafillos J. Mountziaris, both formerly of Chemical and Biological Engineering, patent 7,608,237, Synthesis of Nanostructured Materials Using Liquid Crystalline Templates.

• Julian Ambrus and Long Shen, both of Medicine, and collaborators Chongjie Zhang, formerly of Medicine, and Richard Ford, a non-UB inventor, patent 7,622,574, IL-14 Alpha RNA Inhibitors and Antibodies to IL-14 Alpha for Treatment of Autoimmune Diseases and Lymphomas.

• Sathy Balu-Iyer and Robert M. Straubinger, both of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and collaborators Karthik Ramani, formerly of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Marc Besman and Ramesh Kashi, both non-UB inventors, patent 7,625,584, Method of Complexing a Protein by the Use of a Dispersed System and Proteins Thereof.

Recognized as “visionary innovators” were:

• Michael D. Garrick, Biochemistry, Cell Lines Engineered to Produce Isoforms of DMT1. Industrial Partner is Xenon Pharmaceuticals.

• Frank V. Bright and Michael Detty, both of Chemistry, and collaborators Michael Daniel Drake and Ying Tang, both formerly of Chemistry, Hybrid Anti-Fouling Films. Industrial Partner is TheraSyn Sensors Inc. Bright and Jerome Schentag, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and collaborator David T. D'Andrea, a non-UB inventor, also had several other technologies licensed to TheraSyn Sensors: Vaginal Capsule with Continuous Chemical Sensing and Physiological Measurement Capabilities, A Point of Care Laboratory Device, and An Ingestible Capsule with Continuous Chemical Sensing and Continuous Tracking Using Optical Capabilities.

• Mark Frank, Communication, and collaborators Marian Bartlett, Ian Fasel, Gwen Littlewort-Ford and Javier Movellan, all non-UB inventors, Automated Facial Action Coding System. Industrial Partners are Affective Interfaces, Machine Perception Technologies and Procter & Gamble.

• Thenkurussi Kesavadas, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and collaborators Ankur R. Baheti, Sridhar Karimpuzha Seshadri, Amrish Kumar and Govindarajan Srimathveeravalli, all of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and James Mohler and Khurshid Guru, both non-UB inventors, System for Robotic Surgery Training (RoSS). Industrial Partner is Simulated Surgical Systems LLC.

• Jason Corso and Jinhui Xu, both of Computer Science and Engineering, and Kenneth Hoffmann and Alan Walczak, both of Neurosurgery, and collaborator Peter B. Noel, formerly of Computer Science and Engineering, GPU Based Reconstruction Algorithm for CT Data. Industrial Partner is Ionizing Radiation Imaging Systems LLC.

• David G. Hangauer Jr., Chemistry, Compounds for Broad Screening in Biological Assays. Industrial Partner is Kinex Pharmaceuticals LLC.

• Hani Nabi and Munawwar Sajjad, both of Nuclear Medicine, and collaborators Shipra Dubey of Nuclear Medicine, and Lalit Goswami, Amy Gryshuk, Ravindra K. Pandey, Suresh Pandey and Allan Oseroff, all non-UB inventors, Porphyrin-based Compounds for Tumor Imaging and Photodynamic Therapy and Multimodality Agents for Tumor Imaging and Therapy. Industrial Partner is Hisun Pharmaceuticals Ltd.