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UB faculty inventors recognized
Khurshid A. Guru (left) and Thenkurussi “Kesh” Kesavadas received the Creative Entrepreneur of the Year award. Photo: DOUGLAS LEVERE
UB was well represented and recognized at the 36th annual Inventor of the Year Award Dinner, a ceremony hosted by the Niagara Frontier Intellectual Property Law Association to acknowledge outstanding and creative inventors.
Thenkurussi “Kesh” Kesavadas, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and Khurshid A. Guru, director of robotic surgery at Roswell Park Cancer Institute and UB clinical assistant professor of urology, received the Creative Entrepreneur of the Year award. They co-founded Simulated Surgical Systems LLC, a pioneer in the development of robot-assisted surgical simulators designed to reduce surgical error and make robot-assisted surgical education economically feasible.
The awards were presented recently during a dinner at the Buffalo Museum of Science. The Niagara Frontier Intellectual Property Law Association is a group of patent attorneys from Western New York who recognize accomplished inventors in a variety of fields.
Other UB faculty members receiving awards were Sathy Balu-Iyer, associate professor of pharmaceutical science, and Richard B. Bankert, professor of microbiology and immunology. They won first place in the life sciences category for creating a method to reduce the toxicity of anti-tumor medications.
Second place in the physical sciences category went to Aidong Zhang, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and professor of biomedical engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Murali Ramanathan, professor of neurology and pharmaceutical sciences; and former computer science graduate students Woo-Chang Hwang and Young-Rae Cho. They invented a computer-based method for identifying connecting nodes in a communication network, making it easier to locate problem areas that foster inefficiency.
Timothy Murphy, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Medicine and senior associate dean for clinical and translational research in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and his team won third place in the life sciences category for their patent on compounds to vaccinate against the bacteria Moraxella catarrhallis. This bacterium causes chronic ear infections in children, the treatment of which costs the U.S. $3.8 billion to $5.7 billion in annual health care costs. Also on Murphy’s team were Alan J. Lesse, an associate professor of medicine, and Charmaine Kirkham, a medical technician.
“UB’s goal is to develop commercialization opportunities for each of these patents to generate the type of economic impact Simulated Surgical Systems is having in the community, and to provide new products and services to benefit the public,” says Robert Genco, vice provost and director of UB’s Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR).
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