BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo and Roswell Park Cancer Institute are two out of only 12 institutions in the nation that the National Cancer Institute has chosen to pioneer a new generation of cancer diagnostics and treatments based on nanotechnology.

The NCI, part of the National Institutes of Health, today announced the awarding of two technology platform grants totaling more than $6.7 million over the next five years to researchers at the institutions.

The goal of the grants is to facilitate rapid clinical and basic research advances to generate products for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer for clinical trials or clinical use within the next five years.

Paras N. Prasad, Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Professor and director of UB's Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics, was awarded a $3.46 million grant for research aimed at developing nanotechnologies for earlier diagnosis and more effective treatment of pancreatic cancer. The work also will involve scientists at The Johns Hopkins University.

The second grant, for $3.3 million, has been awarded to Allan Oseroff, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the departments of dermatology at RPCI and in UB's School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. It will fund research by a team that will include Prasad and researchers at the University of Michigan, and will develop nanotechnology platforms for photodynamic therapy (PDT) to improve treatment for several cancers.

"This funding for our cancer research and treatment efforts is tremendously significant for UB and for our research partners, and will play a very meaningful role in advancing the fight against cancer," said UB President John B. Simpson.

"As this grant attests, UB's leadership in the emerging field of cancer nanotechnology has played a key role in establishing the university among the ranks of the nation's top biomedical and life sciences institutions. We're tremendously proud of the contributions made by research faculty like Dr. Prasad and Dr. Oseroff and their colleagues, and we're delighted to see their work receive such richly deserved recognition and support."

The award to Prasad is aimed at reducing deaths from pancreatic cancer, now the fourth most deadly cancer in the U.S., accounting for approximately 31, 000 cancer deaths each year, according to the NCI.

Fewer than five percent of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer live for five years after being diagnosed. In addition, family members with two first-degree relatives with pancreatic cancer have an 18-fold greater risk of developing the disease than the general population, while those with three first-degree relatives with the cancer have a 57-fold greater risk, according to research from The Johns Hopkins University, UB's partner in the research.

"This award marks a critical juncture in the maturation of our nanoparticle research program," said Prasad. "It is extremely gratifying to see that these technologies developed at UB are being applied to a disease where the need for earlier detection and more effective treatment is so pressing.

"We are very excited to be working with our Johns Hopkins colleagues in this project designed to accelerate nanotechnology's move out of the laboratory and into the cancer clinic where its potential can be fully realized."

Prasad and his team will develop diagnostic and treatment methods for pancreatic cancer that capitalize on its demonstrated expertise in developing targeted hybrid ceramic-polymeric nanoparticles to better image pancreatic cancer in vivo and to deliver drugs more effectively to treat it.

The award is a partnership between Prasad's group at UB and groups at The Johns Hopkins University led by Anirban Maitra, M.D., at the Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center and by Martin Pomper, M.D., Ph.D., at the In Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Center.

The grant to Oseroff capitalizes on his expertise in photodynamic therapy or PDT, a treatment that originated at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. PDT exploits the propensity of tumors to retain higher concentrations of photosensitive drugs than normal tissues. When exposed to laser light, these drugs generate toxic molecules that destroy the cancer cells.

Oseroff's research team will use tumor-seeking photosensitizers to target delivery of nanoparticles, facilitating both diagnosis and guided therapy in models of cancers of the breast, colon, prostate and lung.

The nanotechnology work at UB has received critical funding from the John R. Oishei Foundation. It also has received seed funding from the Office of the Vice President for Research at UB.

The nanomedicine program of the Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics operates in collaboration with UB's New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences.

Research at the institute also has been supported by special New York State funding sponsored by State Sen. Mary Lou Rath.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.

(Posted October 17, 2005)

Participants Sought for Panasci Technology Competition

Recent University at Buffalo alumni and UB students with innovative ideas in the technology, life science and engineering industries are being sought as participants in the Henry A. Panasci Jr. Technology Entrepreneurship Competition (Panasci TEC).

Cash prizes of $25,000 and $10,000 in seed funding, as well as one year of legal services and office space, will be awarded to the first- and second-place teams, respectively, that devise and present the best business plan for launch of a viable business.

The competition is sponsored by the Henry A. Panasci Jr. Endowment, the UB School of Management and the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR).

The purpose of the competition is to facilitate and promote the commercialization of UB-generated technologies. It also is designed to provide a mechanism for bringing students from different disciplines together with students from the School of Management to maximize their business and scientific potential and to create viable businesses in Western New York.

Interested students and alumni who have graduated within the past two years will be able to obtain information about the competition at sessions to be held from 10-11:30 a.m. on Sept. 29 or from 5-6:30 p.m. on Oct. 10 in Room 205 of the Alfiero Center on the UB North (Amherst) Campus. Panasci TEC representatives and past winners will be available to answer questions. Register to attend the information session by sending an e-mail to mgt-cel@buffalo.edu.

Applications to participate in the competition are due by Jan. 30, 2006, and teams will be assigned mentors the week of Feb. 8. Each team will be required to submit a business plan by March 24. Judges will review the business plans and name up to five finalists by the week of April 10. Each team in the finals will be required to give a PowerPoint presentation before a panel of judges on April 26. The winner will be announced that day, shortly after the final presentation.

Application materials and information about the competition can be accessed online at mgt.buffalo.edu/ced/cel/tec.shtm or by calling the UB Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at 885-5715.

(Posted September 27, 2005)

Dee Named STOR Associate Commercialization Manager

Timothy P. Dee, D.C., has been named associate commercialization manager for the University at Buffalo Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR).

Dee will work with faculty to identify and protect intellectual property arising from their research programs, and will be responsible for developing commercialization opportunities to transfer the technology into the marketplace. Dee will oversee intellectual property and commercialization opportunities in the chemical and life sciences.

Dee previously was a biotechnology marketing assistant and project support specialist with STOR during the time he attended the UB School of Management MBA program. In those positions, Dee performed technical and market analyses, marketed UB inventions to industry and assisted in commercialization and licensing activities.

"Tim made a significant contribution to our technology review process and commercialization and licensing efforts as a graduate assistant in STOR. We are fortunate to have Tim as a full-time member of our staff," said Jeff Dunbar, director of the Intellectual Property Division of STOR

Prior to enrolling in the UB MBA program, Dee was a chiropractic physician and fitness specialist at AdvantEdge Chiropractic and Wellness in North Carolina.

He earned a bachelor's degree in biology, summa cum laude, from Canisius College; doctor of chiropractic, cum laude, from New York Chiropractic College, and a master of business administration with distinction from the UB School of Management.

Dee is a resident of East Amherst.

(Posted August 24, 2005)

Commercializing Discoveries Aim of New Collaboration

The University at Buffalo Office of Science, Technology and Economic Outreach (STOR) and First Wave Technologies, Inc., a technology-development company, have announced their proactive collaborative effort to expand the commercialization of early-stage university technologies utilizing private-sector resources.

"In our efforts to license university technologies, we find that established industries are often only interested in a technology if it has been fully proven in concept, prototypes developed, or drug and diagnostic trials started. Our technologies are not always at this advanced stage, but rather early in concept and testing," said Robert J. Genco, Ph.D., D.D.S., vice provost and director of STOR. "Partnering with First Wave allows for external funding to develop prototypes, technical and clinical studies, and to create business models that better position the technologies for licensing for commercial production or as a platform for a university start-up business."

STOR and First Wave will establish joint projects for selected university technologies where further development work is required to bring the product to market for the benefit of society. In this unique effort, First Wave will enter into a licensing agreement with UB to develop technologies. Projects will be funded by leveraging private financing, as well as public funding through the federal government's Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, and equivalent New York State programs, which are ideal for early technology development.

"We are very pleased to be working even more closely with STOR to provide these services for those early-stage technologies that can benefit from a joint project between UB and First Wave," said Brian Bell, president of First Wave Technologies. "Though not an exclusive agreement, we certainly believe this collaboration positions First Wave as a preferred commercialization partner for UB."

"This collaboration could increase the chances that many of UB's innovative technologies will be commercialized, and in the process potentially boost regional and state economic development through job and wealth creation," noted Genco.

First Wave will provide UB with another important partner that can advance the commercialization of its early-stage technologies, and help bridge the gap between laboratory research and commercialization. While UB will continue to work with other companies on developing its technologies, First Wave is a direct outgrowth of work between UB, the STOR Advisory Board, and several local technology executives.

An early stage technology development company, First Wave received its initial funding from Moog, Inc., Greatbatch, Inc., NanoDynamics, Inc., Erie County Industrial Development Agency and Buffalo Economic Renaissance Corporation, among others. For more information on First Wave Technologies, contact Brian Bell at 716-560-2203 or brian@firstwavetechnologies.com.

STOR is the primary commercialization and technology transfer office of the University at Buffalo. It identifies, protects and commercializes the outcomes and discoveries of research conducted at UB for the public good, and provides a continuum of business-development support for the university's technologies, entrepreneurs and start-up companies.

(Posted August 18, 2005)

UB Recognizes Faculty Scholars, Inventors and Entrepreneurs at Reception

The University at Buffalo today recognized 42 faculty members and researchers at a Scholars, Inventors and Entrepreneurs Reception in the Center for Tomorrow on the UB North (Amherst) Campus.

The annual reception honors the research and commercialization achievements of faculty members in the following categories: Licenses to Industrial Partners, U.S. Patents, Center for Advanced Biomedical and Bioengineering Technology (CAT), and Exceptional Scholars Awards.

Additionally, the university honored nine companies that joined the UB Technology Incubator program in 2004. They are Buffalo BioBlower Technologies, BubbleFlow Technologies, Inc., Absolute Energy Inc., Lynx Technologies, Inc., Zenhire Inc., Aquasol Corporation, GeneOB USA, Inc., Chakra Biotech Inc., and Virmatics, LLC.

The reception was co-hosted by UB Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Satish K. Tripathi and Interim Vice President for Research Robert J. Genco, who is also vice provost and director of UB's Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR). UB President John B. Simpson and. Russell W. Bessette, executive director of New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research, also attended the event.

"It is the true innovative and intellectually creative work of faculty that defines the best of public research universities," said Tripathi. "Today, UB celebrates the scholarly excellence of our faculty and their critical contributions in ensuring the purpose of the public research university -- the discovery, application, and transmission of new knowledge -- is perpetuated, not only today, but throughout generations to come."

"What we see here are the result of the world-class scientists and researchers." Genco said. "It is their hard work and dedication to their field that puts UB on the map in both the academic world and within industry."

"It is important for us to honor and recognize our faculty's contributions in the transfer of knowledge and technology for the benefit of society," Genco added.

STOR has seen an increase in invention disclosures and licenses. Genco noted that since 2000, a total of 40 technologies have been licensed or optioned to companies, nine of which were to start-up business ventures. This past year, STOR licensed nine technologies, including two to local start-up companies Kinex Pharmaceuticals, LLC and Dynamic Eye, Inc. The university also licensed a swimsuit design to TYR Sports, Inc. These UB developed suits were worn by some of the swimmers in the 2004 Summer Olympics.

The following faculty members invented technologies that were licensed to an industrial partner in 2004:

-- Venugopal Govindaraju, Sargur N. Srihari, Dave Bartnik, Vemulapati Ramanaprasad and Srirangaraj Setlur, all of the UB Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition, along with Hanhong Xue, formerly of UB, developed Stochastic Modeling of High-Level Structures in Handwritten Word Recognition, which was licensed to XactData, Inc. (f/k/a mobileLexis).

-- Thomas J. Bardos, Department of Chemistry, along with Simon M.N. Efange, formerly of UB, Yung-Chi Cheng and Alan Schroeder, developed Therapeutic Use of IPDR, which was licensed to Hudson Health Sciences.

-- Paras Prasad, Earl J. Bergey, Tymish Y. Ohulchanskyy, and Haridas E. Pudavar, Department Chemistry along with Indrajit Roy, formerly of UB, developed Ceramic Based Nanoparticles for Entrapping Therapeutic Agents, which was licensed to Nanobiotix of France.

-- David G. Hangauer, Jr., Department of Chemistry along with Thomas H. Marsilje and Karen Milkiewicz, formerly of UB developed Novel Methods for Designing Protein Kinase Inhibitors which was licensed to Kinex Pharmaceuticals, LLC.

-- Joseph Mollendorf, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, David Pendergast, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, and Albert C. Termin II, Athletics along with Robert Cuviello, formerly of UB, developed Low Drag Swim Apparel, which was licensed to TYR Sport, Inc.

-- Jian Feng, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, developed A Rabbit Polyclonal Antibody Against Parkin, which was licensed to Convance Research Products and Chemicon International, Inc.

-- Donald Henderson, Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, developed Prevention or Reversal of Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SNHL), which was licensed to American BioHealth Group, LLC.

-- Northrup Grumman Patent Donation to UB was licensed to Dynamic Eye, Inc.

The following faculty members were recognized for being named on U.S. patents awarded to the Research Foundation of the State of New York in 2004:

-- Bradley P. Fuhrman and Mark S. Dowhy, Department of Pediatrics, patent 6,675,799 Device and Method of Isolating Bias Flow.

-- John M. Aletta, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, patent 6,699,673 Protein Methylarginine-Specific Antibodies.

-- Sanjay Sethi and Timothy F. Murphy, Department of Medicine, patent 6,740,499 Method for Detecting Bacterial Exacerbations of Chronic Lung Disease.

-- James Mayrose, Department of Emergency Medicine, and Thenkurussi Kesavadas, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, patent 6,752,770 A System and Method for Analyzing a Region Below One of More Layers of Tissues. Mayrose and Thenkurussi were recently named "Inventors of the Year" at the 30th Annual Western New York Inventor of the Year Awards Dinner for this patent.

-- Huw M. L. Davies, Department of Chemistry, patent 6,762,304 Metal Catalysts and Methods for Making and Using Same.

-- Libuse Bobek, Department of Oral Biology, patent 6,790,833 Antifungal and Antibacterial Agents.

-- Abir Mullick and Edward Steinfeld, Department of Architecture, patent 6,820,290 Movable Bathroom Fixtures.

-- Thomas Szyperski and Hanudatta S. Atreya, Department of Chemistry, patent 6,831,459 Method of Using G-Matrix Fourier Transformation Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (GFT NMR) Spectroscopy for Rapid Chemical Shift Assignment and Secondary Structure Determination of Proteins.

The following faculty members were recipients of the 2004 UB Center for Advanced Biomedical and Bioengineering Technology (CAT), which supports university-industry collaboration to accelerate commercialization of biomedical or bioengineering devices:

-- James Garvey, Department of Chemistry, and industrial partner Calspan-UB Research Center for "BioBlower Validation for Air Purification Against Bioterror Organisms."

-- Thomas Mang, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and industrial partner TCAG, Inc. for "Painless Laser Maxillofacial Surgery", and also with industrial partner IET Incorporated for "Real Time Ultralow Dosage Oral Cancer X-Ray Spectrometer."

-- Laura Edsberg, Department of Oral Diagnostic Sciences, with industrial partner TCAG, Inc. for Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) Cartilage Regenerative Surgical Technology."

-- William Mihalko, Director of Orthopaedic Research, with industrial partner Stryker, Inc. for "Validation of New Computer Aided Total Knee Replacement Algorithms."

The Exceptional Scholars Award honors faculty members for their outstanding research performance at different stages in their career. Recipients of the Exceptional Scholars Young Investigator Award were:

-- Daniel B. Hess, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Architecture and Planning.

--Jeffery Errington, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

-- Hung Ngo, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

-- Satrajit Sinha, Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Recipients of the Exceptional Scholars Sustained Achievement Awards were:

-- Vladimir Mitin, Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

-- Chunming Qiao, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

-- LeAdelle Phelps, Department of Counseling, School and Educational Psychology, School of Graduate School of Education.

-- Ram Ramesh, Department of Management Science and Systems, School of Management.

-- Vivian Cody, Department of Structural Biology, Medicinal Chemistry, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

-- Mahavan Nair, Department of Medicine School of Medicine, and Biomedical Sciences.

STOR is the primary commercialization and technology transfer office of the University at Buffalo. It identifies, protects and commercializes the outcomes and discoveries of research conducted at UB for the public good, and provides a continuum of business development support for the university's technologies, entrepreneurs and start-up companies.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.

(Posted May 26, 2005)

Center of Excellence Making Progress Toward Improving Health Care, Spurring Economic Development

Written by Art Page, UB Director of News Services

The new building on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus is nearing completion. The scientific agenda has been solidified, corporate partners identified and a formal organizational and governance structure adopted.

Barely four years after Gov. George Pataki announced an ambitious proposal to create jobs and jump-start the New York State economy through the creation of high-technology "centers of excellence," UB's New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences is well on its way toward fulfilling its dual mission of improving health care while facilitating economic development in Upstate New York.

"If you look at where we were six to eight months ago, there's been a tremendous amount of progress," said Satish K. Tripathi, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.

Perhaps the most visible example of progress is the center's new building at Virginia and Ellicott streets on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Construction of the four-story building is on track for completion in November, with occupancy anticipated in December or January, according to Kevin Thompson, director of facilities planning and design, University Facilities.

The building will feature two floors of information-technology research space and two floors of wet-lab research space. It will be connected via common corridors and a skywalk to new buildings housing the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI), which was formally dedicated on May 12, and the Center for Genetics and Pharmacology of Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI), which also is nearing completion.

Bruce Holm, executive director of the Center of Excellence, points out that 500 scientists are expected to be working at the center within the next five years -- with half of those already affiliated with UB, HWI or RPCI, and half being new hires. The new hires, he said, will be made in areas identified jointly with UB deans as part of the UB 2020 strategic planning process.

Although part of UB 2020 (bioinformatics and health sciences are one of the 10 strategic strengths of the university identified by UB 2020), formal planning for the center began well before that for the other strategic strengths.

The center's updated business plan, finalized last December, establishes the center's governance structure, which includes an executive council overseeing the scientific and the economic development efforts, as well as a scientific advisory council and advisory boards in the areas of education and training, and economic development.

Holm noted that the center is in the process of naming members to the councils and boards.

The center's scientific agenda was established as a result of an all-day retreat attended by about 60 investigators from UB, RPCI and HWI -- similar to the "envisioning retreats" being held with the other nine strengths identified by UB 2020. The areas of scientific focus, Holm said, are based on the specific areas of strength of the center's partners and the work the center has been doing since its creation in 2001.

"We looked at what we have that's great, what we have that really needs work and, right now, what are the initiatives that we can go after and pull in," said Norma Nowak, the center's director of scientific planning.

Nowak is director of the center's Data Intensive Analytical Bioinformatics Core Group, which currently includes more than three dozen researchers in three areas: bioinformatics sciences, functional genomics/systems biology sciences and bioengineering sciences. Among those researchers is Jeffrey Skolnick, professor of structural biology. The core group also includes the research group Nowak directs at RPCI, which has a long track record working on the Human Genome Project and in developing tools to look at the entire genome, rather than at just one gene, in a single experiment.

Nowak will be a featured speaker on bioinformatics and genome research, along with other renowned experts, at a conference, "Beyond Genome 2005: The Future of Medicine Conference," to be held in June in San Francisco.

The core group serves as a fundamental technology and support resource for center members, working with groups of researchers in the center's five focus areas: cancer biology, headed by John Cowell and Michael Brattain; neurodegenerative diseases, headed by L. Nelson Hopkins; cardiovascular diseases, headed by John Canty; pathogenesis and biodefense, headed by Anthony Campagnari, and drug discovery and delivery, headed by William Jusko and Huw Davies. More than 50 researchers currently are associated with the five groups.

"These broad areas give us enough focus to do our job in areas where we already have excellence, and at the same time they have enough breadth to them that we can do innovative things and work in other areas," Holm said.

For instance, obesity research is a "hot" area that deserves to be considered on its own, he said. But since obesity impacts on neurological disease and cardiovascular disease, center members are not precluded from doing obesity research under the present business plan.

Nowak noted that with the appointment in April 2004 of Holm as executive director, the overall focus of the center shifted from one that was highly theoretical and computational to one that "actually directly impacts on health sciences and biomedical research."

"The idea is that what we really want to do within the center is to improve health care," she said. "The road to the human genome started in Buffalo," she noted, referring to her work, as well as that of colleagues at RPCI, on the Human Genome Project. "We're just trying to continue that so you're not just making the tools that sequence the genome, but are using that information to better treat patients and improve the health-care situation."

To accomplish its work, Nowak said, the center needs genetic epidemiologists and bioinformaticians to analyze data, as well as those with strong backgrounds in the basic and clinical sciences.

This is all tied together with informatics, Nowak said. "The real challenge is to integrate medical records with the data that comes out of the labs. And that will allow us then to clearly link those research tidbits with clinical phenotypes."

Nowak said researchers hope to develop better prognostic tools that would indicate, based on a person's genotype, whether he or she likely will respond to a specific treatment.

"We want to be able to tailor medical care to the individual and not just to the disease entities," she said.

The key to all this work is computational ability, Nowak said, noting that scientists are no longer able to keep databases on their computer desktops and there is a strong need to store and process a lot of data while making it accessible to many scientists.

Although it always has been affiliated with the Center of Excellence, the Center for Computational Research (CCR) now has a direct reporting relationship, Holm said. The new arrangement, he added, puts CCR in a better position to attract funding from the NIH and the state, while continuing to serve the needs of the broader university community.

The scientific discoveries made by center researchers will lead to new processes and products that are licensed to existing companies, as well as startup companies.

To facilitate technology transfer, the center has developed a commercialization resource network that includes such entities as the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR); RPCI's Technology Transfer Office; CUBRC (Calspan-UB Research Center Inc.); Buffalo Niagara Enterprise, and BuffLink, Inc., a private, not-for-profit organization geared toward developing economic development opportunities in the life sciences, as well as corporate partners and other community-based organizations.

For example, the center is working with corporate partner GE Healthcare, Niagara Falls Memorial Medical, Niagara University and BuffLink to develop and evaluate the use of non-invasive approaches to cardiovascular disease, specifically regarding a new imaging system that can detect cardiac problems in 10 seconds, compared with traditional methods of inserting a catheter in the body, an invasive procedure that can take hours.

The center also is working on drug production with such corporate partners as Invitrogen, Amgen and Biogen. Holm noted that its work with the center has prompted Invitrogen, which supplies cell-growth material for biotech research, to keep its 550-job plant on Grand Island, and possibly add another 200 jobs.

Holm and Nowak advised staff in Albany working on legislation to create a $90 million economic development program tied to the centers of excellence. The program, Holm said, will provide funding to assist in the earliest stages of licensing and product development, before most venture capitalists are interested in investing.

In addition, the center has played a key role in numerous events designed to promote the work of the center and the advancement of the life sciences industry in Western New York.

Holm and Nowak spoke last October at the Western New York Technology and Biomedical Informatics Forum, a cross-industry forum that provided computer experts a chance to connect with life science researchers and explore partnership opportunities. The event drew more than 300 attendees and 50 exhibitors to the Niagara Falls Conference Center.

Center staff also assisted in planning and coordinating a conference, "Life Science Technologies: Innovations and Opportunities in Biotechnology, Biomedical Informatics and Medical Devices," held in Buffalo in March. Cosponsored by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the conference was said to have attracted the largest group of "heavy hitters" in bioscience that has ever visited the area, and included executives from the life-science units of GE, Intel and Oracle, as well as bioscience companies.

(Posted May 20, 2005)

Creators of Pricing Tool for Online Auctions Win UB Technology Entrepreneur Competition

Written by Jackie Ghosen, UB school of Management Commnications Director

Three MBA students from the University at Buffalo School of Management comprised the team that won more than $30,000 in cash and prizes at UB's annual Henry A. Panasci Jr. Technology Entrepreneurship Competition (Panasci TEC) for their new venture, AuctionCruncher.com.

Alan Zdon and Jaroslaw Sloboda, both of Amherst and students in the UB School Management's Professional MBA program, and Ryan MacLean of Colden, a student in the dual JD/MBA (law/management) program, have devised a plan for a company that helps bidders determine the actual fair-market value of consumer goods on auction sites like eBay.

In addition, AuctionCruncher.com has developed a software package called BiddingBuddy, which allows customers to view average selling price and price-range information while surfing active eBay auctions, enabling them to make smarter bidding decisions and save time and money.

The company also offers online sellers a direct market advertising service to give them the ability to reach target audiences at the product level.

AuctionCruncher.com derives its expertise in the online retail marketplace from its other e-commerce businesses, DigitalFix.com and MidnightBox.com, which specialize in consumer electronics, offering customers the opportunity to purchase products at deeply discounted prices.

Panasci TEC awards seed money and business services to the team that presents the best plan for launch of a viable new business. The prize package includes $25,000 in seed funding and one year of accounting and legal services. Six teams participated in this year's competition, and four teams of finalists presented their business plans publicly in the competition's final round on April 27 in the Jacobs Executive Development Center.

The other finalists presented a variety of new venture ideas, including a medical device to harvest adult stem cells from donors for use in applications such as treating cancer, heart disease, degenerative brain disorders, diabetes and tissue generation; high-technology visualization software for design and financial industries, and a line of bone regeneration products for the dental and orthopedic markets.

Serving as judges for the event were Robert H. Fritzinger, chairman, Zenhire, Inc.; Thaddeus H. Grasela, Jr., president and CEO, Cognigen Corp.; James Hengst, president and CEO, ZeptoMetrix; Marnie LaVigne, director of business development, Bufflink, and Brian Pearson, president, Valuation Advisors, LLC.

Panasci TEC was created by the University at Buffalo School of Management and UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach, and is funded with a $1 million endowment from the late Henry A. Panasci, Jr., to facilitate and promote the commercialization of UB-generated technologies. It also is designed to provide a mechanism for bringing students from different disciplines together with students from the School of Management to maximize their business and scientific potential.

(Posted May 4, 2005)

UB CAT Announces Funding for Industry-University Research

The University at Buffalo Center for Advanced Biomedical and Bioengineering Technology (CAT) has announced that five industry-university collaborative projects in which UB researchers are partnering with private industry in areas ranging from innovative surgical technologies to bioterrorism defense systems have received $1.5 million in funding.

The funding, representing a combination of state and private industry dollars, will be used to develop new technologies for the market.

"It is very encouraging to see this level of university-industry collaboration," said William M. Mihalko, M.D., Ph.D., CAT executive director. "The CAT program is designed to help make companies more competitive by leveraging university researchers and resources to bring innovative products to market more quickly.

"It is a collaborative effort between university researchers and their counterparts in industry," noted Mihalko. "Their interactions help transfer knowledge and technology out of the university setting, while engaging industry on trends in the marketplace that could lead to further research and development, and create a positive economic impact."

The UB CAT is one of 15 centers across the state supported by the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research. Administered by the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR), CAT provides necessary gap funding to promote the development and commercialization of biomedical and bioengineering research, a field in which Buffalo-Niagara traditionally has excelled. Since 2001, CAT has awarded more than $5 million for 27 collaborative projects. This year's projects include:

-- Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) Cartilage Regenerative Surgical Technology. Laura Edsberg, Ph.D., research assistant professor, Department of Oral Diagnostic Sciences, UB School of Dental Medicine, with industrial partner TCAG, Inc. This project supports animal testing for hardware/software system development to regenerate articular cartilage of the temporomandibular joint.

-- Real Time Ultralow Dosage Oral Cancer X-Ray Spectrometer. Thomas Mang, Ph.D., clinical associate professor, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, School of Dental Medicine, with industrial partner IET Inc. This project supports the evaluation of a low dose X-ray spectrometer to detect pre-malignant carcinoma in the oral cavity, allowing for dynamic real time image processing.

-- Validation of New Computer Aided Total Knee Replacement Algorithms. William M. Mihalko, M.D., Ph.D., director of orthopaedic research, Department of Orthopaedics, UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, with industrial partner Stryker, Inc. This project supports the validation of next generation computer navigation software for total knee replacement.

-- Painless Laser Maxillofacial Surgery. Thomas Mang, Ph.D., clinical associate professor, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, UB School of Dental Medicine, with industrial partner TCAG, Inc. This project supports the design, development, testing, and validation of a painless maxillofacial computer-assisted surgical system.

-- Bioblower Validation for Air Purification against Bioterror Organisms. James Garvey, Ph.D., professor, Department of Chemistry, UB College of Arts and Science, with industrial partner CUBRC. This project is to demonstrate that the BioBlower air compressor can provide a suitable heat source and airflow for an integrated catalytic oxidation (CATOX) system.

Companies wishing to learn more about UB CAT and the application process may contact Mihalko at 829-3944 or mihalk@buffalo.edu. Applications may be downloaded at the STOR Web site at http://www.stor.buffalo.edu, which provides information about STOR and its programs.

(Posted April 8, 2005)

Fowler Named STOR Commercialization Manager

Michael L. Fowler, Ph.D., has been named bioinformatics and health sciences commercialization manager for the University at Buffalo Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR).

Fowler will work with faculty to identify and protect intellectual property arising from their research programs, and will be responsible for developing commercialization opportunities to transfer the technology into the marketplace. Fowler will oversee intellectual property and commercialization opportunities for UB's New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, in addition to UB's health-sciences fields.

"Having worked both in academic and private sectors, Mike brings a valuable perspective to the position," said Jeff Dunbar, director of the Intellectual Property Division of STOR. "He understands the diverse types of research being conducted at the university and also has experience in identifying potential market opportunities for the outcomes of such research."

A resident of Orchard Park, Fowler comes to UB with more than 21 years of research and industry experience. Most recently he worked as a product manager in the Cell Culture Division of Invitrogen Corp. (GIBCO) on Grand Island.

At Invitrogen, Fowler was responsible for providing marketing and product support for new product lines. He also worked to increase sales performance by delivering sales and technical training, developing product literature, and providing competitive market analysis.

Fowler previously was a life-sciences marketing manager for Schleicher & Schuell Bioscience in New Hampshire. Prior to his work in industry, Fowler had 17 years of research experience. He was a research assistant professor at the University of Rochester and a postdoctoral fellow for the University at Michigan and Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research.

He earned a bachelor degree in biology from Cornell University and a doctorate in cell and molecular biology from UB's Roswell Park Cancer Institute Graduate Division.

(Posted April 7, 2005)

UB Licenses Sleep Apnea Diagnostic Technology

The University of Buffalo has signed an agreement with Sleep Solutions, Inc., the medical device and health-care services company providing direct-to-patient testing services, to commercialize and distribute an innovative diagnostic testing technology for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and Cheyne-Stokes respiration (CSR).

"This technology represents a substantive advancement in the way OSA can be diagnosed," said Michael J. Thomas, president and CEO of Sleep Solutions, Inc. (SSI). "This new product will broaden our portfolio of services of less expensive, more-patient-friendly diagnostic testing products delivered directly to OSA patients in their homes"

The Maryland-based Sleep Solutions provides technology and services for at-home diagnosis, therapy and care management of sleep-disordered breathing, particularly obstructive sleep apnea.

OSA affects 18 million people in the U.S., with as many as 90 percent going undiagnosed. In addition, CSR, a sleep-disordered breathing condition occurring in patients with congestive heart failure, affects an additional 4.6 million Americans.

The UB technology is a software algorithm that uses a form of artificial intelligence, a "neural network," to detect obstructive sleep apnea and Cheyne-Stokes respiration using a pulse oximetry signal.

Ali El-Solh, M.D., associate professor of medicine, and Brydon J. Grant, M.D., professor of medicine, in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and Jacek Dmochowski, formerly with UB, developed the software programs and algorithms. The technology is based on analysis of the oximetric recordings of 213 sleep studies. The software has demonstrated very high sensitivities and specificities for diagnosing CSR and OSA.

"SSI has contracted with many of the leading managed care organizations throughout the U.S. and developed strong brand awareness of innovation, cost-effectiveness and high-quality services with our core product, NovaSom(tm)QSG(tm)," noted Thomas.

Robert J. Genco, UB interim vice president for research and director of the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR), said there is "a growing worldwide clinical need to provide a cost effective solution for diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea and Cheyne-Stokes respiration. We are very confident that Sleep Solutions will be able to bring this novel technology to the marketplace resulting in a lower-costing, easier-to-implement diagnostic tool for the public good."

Genco noted that Sleep Solutions has a strong product line, distribution channel and clinical-trial experience to successfully commercialize this advanced technology.

"Sleep Solutions' goal is to develop and market this innovative technology for the diagnosis of OSA directly to third-party payors and physicians," said Thomas.

UB's STOR filed for patent protection on behalf of the Research Foundation of the State University of New York. The technology has been issued two patents and an additional patent application is pending.

(Posted March 16, 2005)

Computer Modeling Applied to Mattress Design

A team of engineers from the University at Buffalo's New York State Center for Engineering Design and Industrial Innovation (NYSCEDII) and the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is applying its expertise in virtual prototyping and simulation to mattresses. These are not the typical household mattresses, but rather specialty beds developed by Gaymar Industries, Inc. of Orchard Park and designed to prevent pressure ulcers.

The UB team worked with Gaymar scientists and engineers to model the contact between the patient and the mattress to aid in the development, characterization and improvement of the design and material in Gaymar's Isoflex® mattress.

The partnership with UB proved to be a critical factor recently when Gaymar was bidding on a large contract. Using computer modeling that showed the unique loading and column bucking design of Isoflex® mattress cells, Gaymar and its strategic business partner won a bid worth more than $1 million.

"Not only were we able to demonstrate that the company was getting a high-tech mattress constructed of unique material, but we also could demonstrate the science of how it performed," said Thomas Stewart, president of Gaymar.

Abani Patra, Ph.D., UB associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, headed up the UB research team, which also included Kenneth English, deputy director of NYSCEDII; Kevin Hulme, research associate with NYSCEDII, Mark Lukowski, lab equipment designer in UB's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and several engineering graduate students.

The multi-phase project was supported by the UB Center for Advanced Biomedical and Bioengineering Technology (CAT), a program of the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR).

Using finite-element analysis, the team built a computer model to simulate a human lying on the mattress. Numerous designs and materials were evaluated using this simulation tool. At Gaymar, a physical prototype was tested and measured against the virtual prototype developed in the simulation. Gaymar currently is evaluating the manufacturability and cost of the proposed new design.

"Our partnership with UB allows us to employ the latest in computer modeling to continually refine our product and provide our customers with the best possible mattress to prevent pressure ulcers," noted Stewart. Gaymar and UB are continuing with its collaborative research to further refine materials and designs for the Isoflex brand.

"The UB and Gaymar project is a good example of how the Center for Advanced Technology program can help New York State companies gain a competitive edge," said William M. Mihalko, M.D., Ph.D., executive director of the UB Center for Advanced Biomedical and Bioengineering Technology, a NYSTAR CAT. "The development and subsequent commercialization of this product will have a positive economic impact on the region and the state."

UB CAT is administered by the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach. It provides gap funding to support industry-university collaborative projects that promote the development and commercialization of biomedical and bioengineering research that creates new jobs and opportunities for New York State companies.

(Posted February 16, 2005)

Incubator Company Highlights Winter 2005

GSELearning Software, a developer of custom multimedia eLearning solutions, has released the "ELearning Artisan" authoring application. Artisan creates highly interactive, Flash-based eLearning content with strong support for audio and video, all with no programming skills required. Artisan can produce content for Web or CD-ROM delivery, or to run in a SCORM-conformant Learning Management System. For more information, visit www.gselearning.com

Randforce Associates, LLC, partnered with Buffalo City Schools District on a three year, $1 million Teaching American History grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The project focuses on how the teaching of “Traditional American History” can be enhanced by the incorporation of documents of personal lives and experiences, and how new media and pedagogic techniques can be used to connect these to the issues, themes, and content of traditional history curricula. For more information contact info@randforce.com

Teeter Marketing Services, LLC, took over the management of Surface Engineering Coating Association (SECA). Under Teeter’s management, the association added six new members, updated the web site (www.surfaceengineering.org) and held 2 meetings. Fred Teeter, president, traveled to China during November and December on a variety of projects for several clients. He will return in April and is opening an office in Shanghai in cooperation with a key client. Interested in learning more about conducting business in China? Contact Fred at Fred@TeeterMarketing.com

Virmatics, LLC, is launching its alpha version of Virtual Cloning Suite, a set of software programs intended to make the design of molecular cloning experiments rapid and error-free, and to enable convenient recording and interpretation of data resulting from molecular cloning experiments. Researchers and faculty at the University at Buffalo, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, and Hauptman Woodward will be working with the software to help refine the program. Through September 2005 all users, students, postdocs and staff, of these institutions will be able to use the software at no charge. A beta version will be launching in the Spring 2005 to a number of institutions throughout the US and abroad. For more information, visit www.virmatics.com

(Posted February 2, 2005)

Winter 2005 Inside STOR Newsletter

Download a PDF by clicking here .

(Posted January 31, 2005)

CUBS Focus Is Biometrics

Biometrics, the science of identifying individuals based on their physical, chemical or behavioral characteristics, is a key piece in homeland security strategies, but no single biometric—such as face, signature or fingerprint—fits all applications, says the director of UB's Center for Unified Biometrics and Sensors (CUBS).

Many of the systems on the market have a high false-positive rate, which could be misleading or even dangerous, according to Venu Govindaraju, director of CUBS and professor of computer science and engineering.

For that reason, he says, the UB center takes a unique approach to developing technologies in biometrics, combining and tuning different biometrics to fit specific applications.

"We believe success in this area depends on being able to combine and tune technologies to different applications by using contextual knowledge about how the data will be used," said Govindaraju. "The technology for these applications exists. Now it's a question of figuring out how to build the best devices."

CUBS has secured funding to create systems that:

Could quickly identify suspicious public-health patterns, indicating a possible terrorist attack or epidemic, by automating handwritten data collected about patients entering the nation's emergency rooms. Funded by the National Science Foundation.

Will help close the digital divide between the English and non-English speaking worlds by developing the first optical character reader (OCR) software for handwritten and machine-printed Arabic documents so that they can be searched automatically with keywords. Funded by the Director of Central Intelligence Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program.

Protect Web sites against cyberterrorism using handwritten CAPTCHAS (Completely Automated Public Turing Tests to Tell Computers and Humans Apart), automated tests or puzzles designed to determine whether visitors to sites are humans or machines. Funded by the Calspan-UB Research Center.

Bridge biometrics and forensics by matching automatically facial characteristics described by crime victims or witnesses with large facial databases of persons previously or allegedly involved in crimes or acts of terrorism. Funded by the Calspan-UB Research Center.

Prevent credit-card fraud and protect homeland security by combining face, fingerprint and signature biometrics, and embedding them in smart ID cards. Funded by the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research, UB and Ultra-Scan Corp.

Combine biometrics, such as signatures and fingerprints, to identify individuals entering the U.S. and to improve overall system accuracy. Funded by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

Additional funding for CUBS projects comes from other private high-tech firms, such as mobileLexis (Salt Lake City), Infinite Group (Rochester), Uniform Data System for Medical Rehabilitation (Amherst) and Ubique (Buffalo).

(Posted January 20, 2005)

New Program Supports Startups at UB Technology Incubator

Paul McAfee, CEO of eXubrio, LLC, has been appointed entrepreneur-in-residence at the University at Buffalo Technology Incubator, part of the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR). McAfee will help UB-affiliated startups and faculty entrepreneurs in developing their emerging businesses.

"Paul is a tremendous asset for STOR. His work with start-up business and inventive researchers will help us in our commercialization efforts," said Woodrow "Woody" Maggard, UB associate vice provost and associate director of STOR.

"By adding Paul to our team, we are providing important on-site marketing, business planning and business development support -- all of which are critical for early-stage businesses."

McAfee will be available to meet with companies and faculty on a weekly basis at STOR's office, located in the UB Technology Incubator at Baird Research Park on Sweet Home Road, Amherst. With more than 30 years of experience in global, high technology executive-level sales and marketing, McAfee specializes in working with emerging companies. He holds a similar position at the University of Rochester.

McAfee is founder of management consulting firm eXubrio, LLC. eXubrio serves emerging technology companies by helping them to improve their marketing and sales effectiveness while managing carefully their limited early-stage funds. The company provides full-service strategic planning, public relations, marketing communications, graphic design, lead generation, sales and Web-site management services. eXubrio's primary office is in Buffalo. It has satellite offices in Rochester and Tel Aviv, Israel.

He is a resident of Amherst.

STOR is the primary commercialization and technology transfer office of the University at Buffalo. It identifies, protects and commercializes the outcomes and discoveries of research conducted at UB for the public good, and provides a continuum of business development support for the university's technologies, entrepreneurs and start-up companies.

(Posted January 11, 2005)

Using Customized Nanoparticles, UB Scientists Achieve Non-Viral Gene Delivery In Vitro and Track it in Real-Time

A gene therapy method that doesn't rely on potentially toxic viruses as vectors may be growing closer as the result of in vitro research results reported by University at Buffalo scientists in the current online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper, which describes the successful uptake of a fluorescent gene by cells using novel nanoparticles developed as DNA carriers at UB, demonstrates that the nanoparticles ultimately may prove an efficient and desirable alternative vector to viruses.

Using confocal microscopy and fluorescent spectroscopy, the UB scientists tracked optically in real-time the process known as transfection, including the delivery of genes into cells, the uptake of genes by the nucleus and their expression.

"We have shown that using photonics, the gene-therapy transfer can be monitored, tracking how the nanoparticle penetrates the cell and releases its DNA in the nucleus," explained Paras N. Prasad, Ph.D., executive director of the UB Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry in the University at Buffalo's College of Arts and Sciences, and a co-author of the paper.

"When the fluorescent protein was produced in the cell, we knew transfection had occurred," he said.

The work is important in light of the difficulties that have plagued gene-therapy human trials in recent years, including some fatalities that may have resulted from the use of viral vectors.

"Efficient delivery of the desired gene and substantial release inside the cell is the major hurdle in gene therapy," explained Dhruba J. Bharali, Ph.D., a co-author and postdoctoral researcher in the UB Department of Chemistry and UB's Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics, where the work was done.

"Viruses have been used as efficient delivery vectors due to their ability to penetrate cells, but there is the chance they can revert back to 'wild' type," he said.

While non-viral vectors are safer, he noted that it is much more difficult to get them into cells and then to achieve the release of DNA once they do penetrate cells.

The advantage of the UB team's approach, he explained, is that unlike most other nonviral vectors, the DNA-nanoparticle complex releases its DNA before it can be destroyed by the cell's defense system, boosting transfection significantly.

The UB scientists also were able to use photonic methods to provide an unprecedented look at how transfection occurs, from the efficient uptake of nanoparticles in the cytoplasm to their delivery of DNA to the nucleus.

"No gene-delivery vehicle -- either viral or non-viral -- has ever been tracked in the cell before," explained Tymish Y. Ohulchanskyy, Ph.D., the third co-author and post-doctoral research scholar at the institute. "By using our photonics approach, we can track gene delivery step by step to optimize efficiency," he said.

The research team makes its nanoparticles from a new class of materials: hybrid, organically modified silicas (ORMOSIL).

"The structure and composition of these hybrid ORMOSILs yield the flexibility to build an extensive library of tailored nanoparticles for efficiently targeting gene therapy into different tissues and cell types," said Prasad.

The UB researchers now are collaborating on in vivo studies with colleagues from the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences to use their novel nanoparticles to transfect neuronal cells in the brains of mice.

This research was supported by the U.S. Air Force through its Defense University Research Initiative on Nanotechnology (DURINT) grant.

(Posted December 22, 2004)

New System Reduces Risk of Burns during Interventional X-Rays

The threading of slender catheters and stents through arteries to deliver treatments to the heart, the brain and elsewhere in the body has produced nothing short of a medical revolution.

But these delicate procedures require that patients be exposed to continuous radiation that can last up to an hour or more, sometimes causing skin injuries that, in rare cases, develop necrosis (tissue death), requiring skin grafts.

Now University at Buffalo researchers, working with an Amherst, N.Y., startup company called Esensors have developed a unique, real-time patient dose-tracking system, which lets physicians know when the accumulated radiation dose is approaching a dangerous threshold.

The system is designed to be used either as a retrofit with existing fluoroscopy machines or to be included in the design of new machines.

Funded by grants totaling $814,000 from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under the Small Business Innovation and Research program, the team of researchers is completing a prototype that will be clinically site-tested prior to commercialization.

"Our system provides complete tracking of actual radiation levels on the skin, providing both instantaneous dose rate, as well as cumulative exposure," explained Daniel Bednarek, Ph.D., UB project director, researcher at UB's Toshiba Stroke Research Center, professor of radiology and research associate professor of neurosurgery and biophysics in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Development of the system was spurred by a growing concern among physicians and by advisories issued by the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health warning of occasional, but severe, radiation-induced skin injuries during prolonged, fluoroscopically guided invasive procedures.

"It can take a long time to insert a catheter into the brain and perform a complicated endovascular treatment, for example," explained Bednarek, also an adjunct professor in the Department of Physics in UB's College of Arts and Sciences. "Patients undergoing such procedures sometimes develop erythema – redness – hair loss or even skin necrosis in the exposed area."

These effects can result whenever long fluoroscopic times are used during interventional procedures, such as coronary angioplasty, stent placement, radiofrequency cardiac ablation and vascular embolization.

"With the equipment that currently is being used, the physician can minimize the chance for burns by moving the X-ray source instead of keeping the intensity on one spot," explained Darold Wobschall, Ph.D., UB professor emeritus of electrical engineering and president of Esensors. "The problem is that the physician is concentrating on the surgery and with X-rays coming in, he or she would have to be keeping mental track of where the dose is occurring at the same time."

"Our system solves that problem," said Wobschall.

Through electronic sensors, the system tracks the position of the X-ray gantry and patient table, and thus, the location of the X-ray relative to the patient to determine the radiation exposure at the patient's skin, he explained.

"The computer tracks the beam's location and intensity, presenting the beam and the cumulative distribution of dose on the patient's skin as a color-coded graphic on a display screen," he said.

As the dose accumulates, the color on the display changes from green, which is acceptable, through yellow to red, which is a signal that the patient could be receiving too much radiation.

This visualization of the X-ray beam and its location with reference to a graphic model of the patient presents the physician with real-time visual feedback, allowing him or her to make the appropriate adjustments.

An added feature under development includes a visualization of the distribution and amount of X-ray scatter throughout the room, providing a way to gauge exposure for the physician and other health-care personnel who may be present.

The development effort for the computer graphic display was led by co-investigator Kevin Chugh, Ph.D., formerly a research scientist in UB's New York State Center for Engineering Design and Industrial Innovation (NYSCEDII).

Petru M. Dinu, a doctoral candidate in the UB Department of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, played a major role in developing the system at UB's Toshiba Stroke Research Center.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.

(Posted December 3, 2004)

Two-Fisted Assault on Dopamine Transport System May Be Foundation of Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease may be caused by an environmental-genetic double whammy on the neurons that produce dopamine, the neurotransmitter that controls body movement, a new study has shown.

Researchers at the University at Buffalo, using cultures of rat neurons, have shown that the presence of mutated parkin genes, combined with the toxic effects of the chemical rotenone, results in a cascade of highly toxic free radicals, the destruction of microtubules that transport dopamine to the brain's movement center, and eventual death of the dopamine-producing neuron.

"This study shows how an environmental toxin and a gene linked to Parkinson's disease affect the survival of dopamine neurons by dueling on a common molecular target -- microtubules -- that are critical for the survival of dopamine-producing neurons," said Jian Feng, Ph.D., assistant professor of physiology and biophysics in UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and senior author.

"Based on these findings, we have identified several ways to stabilize microtubules against the onslaught of rotenone. These results ultimately may lead to novel therapies for Parkinson's disease."

Results of the research will be presented Dec. 5 at the American Society for Cell Biology meeting in Washington D.C.

Researchers who study Parkinson's disease know that persons with a mutation in the parkin gene are at risk for the disease, and that exposure to agricultural chemicals, including rotenone, cause Parkinson's-like symptoms in animals. In addition, long-term epidemiological studies of Parkinson's disease patients have shown a strong link between exposure to pesticides/herbicides and increased risk of developing the disease, Feng noted.

Earlier research by several groups has shown that rotenone destroys only neurons that produce dopamine, while largely sparing neurons that produce other neurotransmitters. Dr. Feng's laboratory set out to answer the questions "Why?" and "How?"

By studying the effects of rotenone on rat neurons, they discovered that one of the targets of the pesticide was microtubules – intracellular highways for transporting various chemicals such as dopamine to the brain area that controls body movement.

Normally the enzyme parkin would protect the neuron from rotenone's assault on microtubules, Feng said.

"When microtubules are broken down by rotenone, the disassociated protein building blocks, called tubulin, are left behind," he said. "These tubulins are probably misfolded proteins. Left unattended, they could interfere with the normal assembly of microtubules. Based on our previous work that parkin marks this 'old' tubulin for rapid degradation, we theorize that parkin may thus prevent this interference."

Mutated parkin loses this protective ability, however, allowing rotenone to do its damage unchecked.

Feng and colleagues showed that rotenone damages the microtubules, which prevents dopamine from reaching the brain's movement center, causing a back-up in the dopamine transport system. Meanwhile, the backed-up dopamine accumulates in the neuron's cytoplasm and breaks down, causing a release of toxic free radicals, which destroy the neuron.

Additional researchers on the study were Yong Ren, Ph.D., Wenhua Liu, Ph.D. and Houbo Jiang, Ph.D., postdoctoral associates in the UB Department of Physiology and Biophysics.

The study was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Health.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.

(Posted December 1, 2004)

Pathogens in Dental Plaque Implicated in Development of Pneumonia in Hospitalized Elderly

Helping nursing home patients brush their teeth or dentures does more than freshen breath, increase comfort and prevent gum disease, a new study has shown.

Good oral health in institutionalized elders may help protect them from contracting potentially deadly pneumonia if they need to be hospitalized, reports a study published in the November issue of the journal Chest and conducted by researchers at the University at Buffalo.

Using molecular genotyping, investigators matched respiratory pathogens from the lungs of eight patients who developed hospital-acquired pneumonia with pathogens collected from their dental plaque when they were admitted to the hospital.

"This is the first study to establish unequivocally a link between dental hygiene and respiratory infection," said Ali A. El-Solh, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of medicine in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and first author on the study.

"Further research is needed to determine the type of therapeutic intervention and the frequency of oral care required to reduce the risk of pneumonia in institutionalized elderly."

Earlier research, including studies conducted at UB, showed that the same types of bacteria commonly found in dental plaque often are present in those with respiratory diseases. However, this investigation is the first to show that pathogens found in a patient's mouth at admission are genetically identical to pathogens found later in lung fluid following a diagnosis of hospital-acquired pneumonia.

The study population was composed of 49 nursing home residents who were admitted to the intensive care unit of Erie County Medical Center, a UB teaching hospital, and required a respirator. The researchers omitted patients who had pneumonia when admitted or who developed pneumonia within 72 hours; had a low platelet count or blood-clotting disorders; had received antibiotic therapy or been hospitalized within the past 60 days; needed immunosuppressive drugs, or had no teeth or dentures.

All study patients were assigned a dental-plaque score following an oral examination, and samples of plaque were collected to determine the types of bacteria present. Of the 49 patients, 28 had respiratory pathogens in their dental plaque samples and 21 did not.

Patients were watched closely for signs of pneumonia. Fourteen patients eventually developed the infection: 10 from the respiratory pathogen group, four from the no-pathogen group.

Fluid samples collected from those with pneumonia were assayed to determine the type of bacteria present. Results showed that of 13 pathogens isolated from lung fluid, nine were a genetic match to those recovered from the plaque of the corresponding patient.

"These findings indicate that dental plaque is a reservoir of respiratory pathogens that can cause pneumonia in hospitalized institutionalized elders," said El-Solh. "We need to investigate the relationship between the burden of dental disease and the incidence of respiratory events.

"In the meantime, nursing homes and other institutions housing frail elderly should be involved actively in improving daily oral hygiene of their residents and enhancing access to dental care," he said.

Additional researchers on the study were Celestino Pietrantoni, D.O., clinical instructor; Abid Bhat, M.D., clinical assistant instructor; Mifue Okada, M.D., visiting scholar from Japan; Alan Aquilina, M.D., clinical professor, and registered nurse Eileen Berbary, all from the Department of Medicine's Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine in the UB medical school, and Joseph Zambon, D.D.S., Ph.D., professor of periodontics and endodontics in the UB School of Dental Medicine.

The study was supported by a grant from the American Lung Association of New York.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.

(Posted November 30, 2004)

Tissue Engineered Blood Vessels that Respond to Changing Blood Flow Have Potential for Use in Heart Bypass Surgery

Researchers at the University at Buffalo have developed a process in which cells are used to construct new blood vessels, opening the door to growing new blood vessels for procedures like coronary bypass surgery, according to a paper published online on Oct. 14 in the American Journal of Physiology -- Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

The small-diameter tissue engineered blood vessels (TEVs), developed and implanted in sheep, exhibited the strength and resiliency necessary for implantation after just two weeks in culture, to date the shortest development time for artificial vessels that have functioned successfully.

The TEVs functioned well in vivo for 15 weeks after implantation.

The UB researchers constructed the vessels by embedding vascular smooth-muscle cells isolated from sheep umbilical cords into fibrin, the essential clotting ingredient in blood. The fibrin gel matrix then was shaped into cylinders; after only two weeks, the tissue thinned down to approximately half a millimeter and they could then be implanted.

A patent application has been filed on the novel, tissue-engineered vascular vessel and the method for making it.

"We have shown that fibrin-based vessels can be implanted in vivo, remain patent and support blood flow rates for 15 weeks," said Stelios Andreadis, Ph.D., associate professor of chemical and biological engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He was co-author on the paper with Daniel D. Swartz, Ph.D., research assistant professor, and James A. Russell, Ph.D., professor, both in the UB Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

The tissue engineered blood vessels exhibited blood flow rates and reactivity similar to those of native vessels.

"It's not a stretch to extrapolate that these TEVs could remain functional in the long term because the animals presented no adverse effects," said Andreadis.

Even more critical, the scientists say, the TEVs performed like native vessels 15 weeks after implantation, when the animals used in the research were sacrificed. They exhibited excellent "remodeling," producing collagen and elastin, and had increased their mechanical strength by more than a factor of three.

"These are the first tissue engineered vessels to show long-term viability without clotting -- a key problem with small diameter vessels -- and with no adverse effects observed from the material we used," said Andreadis.

"Before implantation, the inner walls of these TEVs are coated with endothelial cells to mimic the composition of native tissue and prevent thrombosis," Andreadis said.

After implantation, he noted, the fibrin gel was completely undetectable, an important outcome since some materials in other systems have degraded into toxic byproducts.

The TEVs also exhibited not just mechanical strength, but the critical ability that native vessels have to constrict or dilate in response to their environment.

"We put our TEVs through rigorous testing," he added, "and we found that they are very reactive. We have developed vessels that dilate or constrict mechanically in response to chemical compounds. That's how native vessels adapt to changing flow rate."

Because of this property, the vessels may have additional applications as model systems for studying how mechanical forces act on the blood vessel wall.

They also may have application as toxicological models for in vitro testing of how vasoconstricting or vasodilating drugs affect blood vessels, Andreadis added.

The research was supported by grants from UB's Interdisciplinary Research and Creative Activities Fund and by the Women's and Children's Hospital of Buffalo.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.

(Posted November 17, 2004)

Peptide from Tarantula Venom Shows Promise as Treatment for Muscular Dystrophy, Incontinence, Atrial Fibrillation

Little Miss Muffet probably would not sit on a tuffet in Frederick Sachs' lab, even if he had such a seat. He keeps spiders there. Tarantulas, to be exact.

Sachs and his colleagues in the Center for Single Molecule Biophysics in the University at Buffalo's School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences have isolated a peptide from tarantula venom that shows promise as a therapy for conditions as disparate as muscular dystrophy, cardiac arrhythmias and urinary incontinence.

Research by Frederick Sachs indicates a peptide from tarantula venom may be an effective therapy for several medical disorders.

The researchers discovered the peptide, purified it and changed its structure to its mirror image to prevent it from being destroyed by stomach enzymes or the immune system. Their most recent research results were published in July in the journal Nature. Earlier findings were published in Nature and the Journal of General Physiology. They now will study ways to turn the peptide into treatments for specific disorders with the aid of a $900,000 grant from the John R. Oishei Foundation.

"These funds will help us identify the key components of the peptide's molecular structure and learn how it works to block mechanical transduction in cells," said Sachs, a professor of biophysics and lead researcher on the work. "We expect the results will accelerate the path leading to clinical applications."

Co-investigators Tom Suchyna, Ph.D., research associate, and Philip Gottlieb, Ph.D., associate professor of physiology and biophysics, play pivotal roles in the research.

Thomas E. Baker, president of the John R. Oishei Foundation, said Sachs' work advances the foundation's interest in supporting translational research for common illnesses.

"We believe the best role we can play is to move excellent, promising new approaches from the lab to the clinic," he said. "We also believe we can provide the boost of extra time that researchers like Dr. Sachs need to establish a case for new support from the federal level."

The novel peptide from tarantula venom, labeled GsMTx4, is the only agent known to block specifically pores in cell membranes called mechanosensitive ion channels. "These are the transducers that turn mechanical stress into cellular signals," said Sachs. "They are familiar to us as the sensors for hearing and touch. However, they also have been implicated in biological functions as diverse as muscle coordination, blood pressure and volume regulation.

"Stretch-sensitive channels probably are involved in many normal tissue functions that involve changes in mechanical stress, such as bladder filling, heart and circulatory-system responses to changes in blood pressure, and fluid balance," he said. "They also are involved in pathologies such as cardiac arrhythmias, congestive heart failure, the elevated calcium levels in muscular dystrophy and the growth of brain tumors."

Researchers in Sachs' laboratory discovered these channels nearly 20 years ago and since then have been focusing on their properties. It was difficult to associate the channels with particular physiological functions before the discovery of GsMTx4, said Sachs, because there were no compounds the channels responded to specifically.

"Basically we went on a fishing expedition looking for a compound, screening chemicals we thought might work. Eventually, we started looking at the venom of poisonous bugs. We didn't know why a bug would possibly make such a thing, but thought it was worth a try."

The venom of two spiders, as it turned out, did act on the channels. One was a type of tarantula commonly known as the Chilean Rose, which became the focus of their work.

"Rosie," a Chilean Rose tarantula that measures nearly six inches tip-to-hairy-leg-tip and is thought to be 30 years old, is now the laboratory pet. Several younger members of her species also live in the laboratory and are used for various aspects of the research.

In addition to the Oishei Foundation, Sachs' laboratory has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the United States Army Research Office and NPS Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

The John R. Oishei Foundation's mission is to enhance the quality of life for Buffalo-area residents by supporting education, health care, scientific research and the cultural, social, civic and other charitable needs of the community. The foundation was established in 1940 by John R. Oishei, founder of Trico Products Corp., one of the world's leading manufacturers of windshield wiper systems.

(Posted November 4, 2004)

Genco Receives Excellence in Pursuit of Knowledge Award

Dr. Robert J. Genco, vice president for research (interim) and director of STOR, will be recognized at the State University of New York Research Foundation’s Dinner Honoring SUNY Innovation, Creation and Discovery to be held on November 4, 2004 in Albany, New York. Genco is one of seven faculty in the SUNY system being honored for their singular contributions to scholarship and the reputation of the University.

Genco and his colleagues were among the first to report a connection between gum disease and heart disease and stroke and led studies relating infection to diabetes mellitus and obesity.

Currently he is principal investigator on a $7.3 million grant from the NIDCR to do preliminary studies and conduct a pilot clinical trial of the impact of periodontal disease treatment on prevention of second heart attacks. He is editor of the Journal of Periodontology and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science. He also has held numerous administrative positions at UB, and has demonstrated success in commercializing both his own discoveries and those of others.

Other UB faculty members will be honored at the dinner, including John M. Aletta, Paschalis Alexandridas, Jim D. Atwood, Thenkurussi Kesavadas, Sriram Neelamegham, Troy Wood for First Patent Awards, and Philip Gottlieb, Jameson S. Lwebuga-Mukasa, Kate Rittenhouse-Olson, for Promising Inventors Awards.

(Posted October 18, 2004)

UB and Kinex Sign Agreement for Anti-Cancer Drug Development

Kinex Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical company located in Buffalo, has signed an exclusive license with the University at Buffalo to develop drugs for the treatment of cancer, osteoporosis, and ischemic disorders.

David Hangauer, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Chemistry in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, who also is Kinex senior vice president for research and development, has developed a method for designing and synthesizing a series of anti-cancer compounds called protein kinase inhibitors that shrink tumors and prevent metastases with minimal side effects. These inhibitors have the potential to become a multi-billion dollar market.

"Kinex is targeting src ("sark") kinase and two series of inhibitors have been developed," said Allen Barnett, Ph.D., Kinex CEO. "We feel that by the end of 2004, we'll have a lead compound selected and ready for application as an Investigational New Drug with the FDA."

Barnett and Genco sign license agreement.

Barnett noted that within the next two years, Kinex will complete its preclinical research and begin its phase I human studies.

Last fall, Kinex optioned the technology from UB to carry out initial studies and testing and began to raise capital. At the end of July, the company closed on its Series A financing.

"UB researchers make technological breakthroughs that lead to intellectual property that can be commercialized for the public good," said Robert J, Genco, UB interim vice president for research and director of the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach.

"The collaboration between UB and Kinex demonstrates the value of technology transfer in the Buffalo Niagara area. Kinex has the potential to be a life sciences success story for the region."

Kinex was founded in 2003 by Barnett, Hangauer, and Lyn Dyster, Ph.D., who serves as the vice president of drug discovery. All three received their doctoral degrees from UB. Kinex has recruited Johnson Lau, M.D., to serve as chairman of the board. Johnson brings significant scientific and business experience. Most recently, he was chairman, president and CEO of Ribapharm, where he launched the second largest biotech IPO in history.

Kinex Pharmaceuticals is a product-oriented drug discovery company with a unique technology platform and extensive pharmaceutical expertise focusing on Next Generation anti-cancer drug discovery and development, against validated molecular targets. For additional information, go to http://www.kinexpharma.com.

(Posted October 7, 2004)

UB Reporter Q&A with STOR

Jeffrey A. Dunbar, interim director of the Intellectual Property Division of the Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach, answers questions on technology transfer and commercialization.

What is STOR?

STOR is short for the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach. We work to identify, protect and commercialize the research discoveries of our faculty and staff for the public good. STOR also operates the UB technology incubator program and oversees a number of commercialization programs, such as the Center for Advanced Technology. The focus of my group is on intellectual property and technology transfer.

What is a patent? Is it the same thing as invention disclosure?

A patent is an official government document that grants to the owner of the patent (assignee) a right to exclusivity in making, using, selling and offering for sale the invention for up to 20 years from the date of filing the application. To be issued a patent, your invention has to meet a number of requirements, such as novelty, non-obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art and utility. A patent owner may license rights to use the patent to other parties, usually in exchange for license fees and royalties on the sale of products.

An invention disclosure is the written document submitted to STOR that begins the intellectual property protection process. The invention disclosure describes your invention and lists the inventors, or developers in the case of computer software. STOR determines whether the invention is more suited for patent or copyright protection (i.e., computer software). In the case of patenting, we work with the inventors to assess whether the invention meets the patent requirements. In many cases, we help outline additional experiments needed to either meet the patent requirements or strengthen the claims of the proposed patent application. Decisions on whether to file for a patent depend on the patentability and commercial potential of the technology.

Can you describe the process involved in taking an invention to the marketplace?

Most university-developed technology is in its early stages and requires significant investment in product development, and possibly regulatory approval, if it is in the therapeutic, diagnostic or medical-device fields. From the university's perspective, the first step is identifying a commercial partner interested in licensing the technology and capable of making additional investments in product development.

Inventors are very important in the licensing process. Many leads come from contacts they make through publishing or presenting their work. As the "champions" for the technology, inventors are very involved in the technical exchange with potential licensees, helping them to better understand the uses and advantages of the invention and, in some cases, conducting sponsored research.

Licensees are traditionally established companies looking to add or enhance product lines or to improve manufacturing processes or services. However, start-up companies are becoming more common as established companies invest less in research and development. Inventors often are the founders of the company or serve as science officers or consultants.

Once a company decides to license a technology, there are a number of steps before it becomes a product. A prototype may have to be built, tested and refined. An efficient manufacturing process has to be developed and some products require regulatory approval. Another important step is determining how the company will market and sell the product: Who are the customers? How much will they pay? Where will they buy? It can take as little as one to two years to take an invention into the marketplace, or more than 10 years if you are developing a new drug.

Why is it important that faculty members turn their research into commercial applications?

I think research can take two forms. The first leads to discoveries that advance knowledge and set the stage for future discovery. In most cases, this type of discovery is not patentable or does not have a direct commercial application. The second type of research results in technology that can directly benefit the public good. The reality in this case is that someone has to invest money into the technology to turn it into a commercial product. For someone to invest, they will expect to make a profit, and this requires the exclusivity that comes from patents and copyrights.

The federal government recognized this reality when it passed the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980. Prior to the Bayh-Dole Act, the government owned any intellectual property resulting from the research it funded, much of which was simply published without patents, or if it was patented, fell into an inefficient government process.

The Bayh-Dole Act fuels patenting and licensing activities since it allows universities to own the intellectual property and requires that inventors receive a share of the licensing revenues. SUNY policy directs 40 percent of licensing revenues to the inventors to reward them for their innovations. According to the December 2002 issue of The Economist, since 1980 there has been a tenfold increase in patents generated by universities, 2,200 start-up companies, more than 260,000 jobs created and more than $40 billion annual economic impact on the economy.

So, to answer your question, turning research into commercial applications is an important step in delivering the benefits of research to the public good.

How does STOR help UB inventors?

We can help inventors assess technology for intellectual-property protection and commercial opportunity. We are sensitive to publishing pursuits and can file provisional patent applications to protect intellectual property when we have reasonable advanced notice. We also assist with outgoing material-transfer agreements and confidentiality agreements.

If an inventor is interested in being an entrepreneur, the UB technology incubator provides flexible rental terms for office and wet laboratory space, administrative support services and general business assistance in the form of mentoring and networking.

Through the UB Center for Advanced Technology (CAT), STOR can provide "gap" funding for industry-university projects that develop and transfer emerging technologies to the private sector.

For UB inventors interested in learning more about commercialization funding, STOR has organized an Inventors Forum on Oct. 27 to discuss the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program and First Wave Technologies, a local development company that provides resources and support for emerging technologies.

More information on all the services and programs STOR offers can be found online at http://www.stor.buffalo.edu.

How's UB doing regarding inventions and/or patents? How do we stack up against other AAU universities and SUNY institutions?

In the 2003-04 fiscal year, UB received 81 new technology disclosures, filed 54 patent applications (including provisional applications) and was issued 12 patents. These numbers are on par with our peer institutions, including SUNY Stony Brook.

What are some of the more recent licenses to inventions developed by UB faculty members?

Paras Prasad and his collaborators developed multifunction nanoclinics for cancer treatment. The patents are licensed to Nanobiotix, a France-based, start-up company of which Dr. Prasad is a cofounder.

David Hangauer is a cofounder of Kinex Pharmeceuticals, Inc., which licensed a series of patent applications for compounds that inhibit the Protein Kinase and Phosphatase family of proteins. Kinex plans to develop drugs for the treatment of cancer, osteoporosis and stroke.

Joseph Mollendorf, David Pendergast and Budd Termin, head coach of the UB men's swim team, developed a low-drag swimsuit that is licensed by TYR Sport and was worn by a number of 2004 Olympians from around the world.

What question do you wish I had asked, and how would you have answered it?

I think an important question to ask is what should we expect out of technology transfer activities? In a 2002 survey of university licenses, only 145 out of 20,086 active licenses generated more than $1 million dollars that year. Most licenses will result in modest licensing revenues. That means we have to work to build a broad portfolio of successful licenses and focus on the other very positive outcomes of technology transfer: public benefit, economic development, sponsored research and inventor rewards. In time, the next "home run" will be discovered somewhere in the laboratories of the University at Buffalo.

(Posted October 7, 2004)

Fall 2004 Inside STOR Newsletter

Download a PDF by clicking here.

(Posted September 30, 2004)

UB Opens $21.2 Million Earthquake Engineering Simulation Facility

A new era in earthquake-engineering research was ushered in today with the grand opening of the National Science Foundation's George E. Brown Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Facility within the University at Buffalo Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering.

The $21.2 million NEES facility is the largest investment in the National Science Foundation's $81.9 million project to improve understanding of earthquakes and their effects on buildings, bridges, roads, transportation systems and other infrastructure. The project is named in honor of the late California Congressman George E. Brown, Jr., former chairman of the House Science Committee and an advocate in Congress for engineering and science.

The NEES facility is a key node in a nationwide earthquake-engineering "collaboratory" -- a network of 15 state-of-the-art laboratories that will allow earthquake engineers and students at different institutions to share resources, collaborate on testing and exploit new computational technologies.

UB President John B. Simpson described the opening of the facility as "a momentous occasion indeed for our university, with truly earth-shaking implications for the field of earthquake engineering itself.

"UB has long had a national reputation -- and indeed, a global reputation -- as a major locus for research in earthquake engineering and structural dynamics, and the NEES simulation facility will firmly establish UB among the very top earthquake engineering institutions in the United States," Simpson added.

"Through its groundbreaking research, our earthquake engineering research center exemplifies one of the key strengths that define UB as a leading public research university -- our commitment to far-reaching, cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research that is deeply invested in bettering the communities we serve both locally and globally."

An opening ceremony for the NEES facility at UB was hosted by Simpson and Mark H. Karwan, dean of the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Other remarks were made by A. Galip Ulsoy, division director, Civil and Mechanical Systems, National Science Foundation. An archived Web broadcast of the ceremony can viewed at http://nees.buffalo.edu/.

As part of NEES, UB's Structural Engineering and Earthquake Simulation Laboratory (SEESL) underwent a $21.2 million equipment upgrade and expansion of the laboratory from 12,000 to 25,000 square feet. The NSF provided $11.2 million in funding, with $3.2 million coming from the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and $800,000 from its Department of Civil and Structural Engineering. The State University of New York provided $6 million from its construction fund for a new infrastructure to house the lab's new equipment within the expanded SEESL, located in Ketter Hall on UB's North (Amherst) Campus.

Among those underscoring the importance of the federal and state investments in the new facility was Sen. Mary Lou Rath of Williamsville, representing the Western New York delegation in the state Legislature.

"We all know the damage and devastation earthquakes can cause," Rath noted. "The new NEES facility will allow UB's earthquake engineers to better understand how to prevent such destruction. That research will help protect people and property in New York and across the United States."

Studies at the NEES facility will focus primarily on how very large structures behave during earthquakes, providing researchers with new advanced tools to generate new knowledge on how structures and foundations behave during earthquakes. Researchers also will study ways to make structures more resistant to terrorist attacks.

The centerpieces of the NEES facility are dual-movable, six-degree-of-freedom shake tables, made by MTS Systems Corp., which easily can be repositioned within the lab, for real-time seismic testing of structures up to 120 feet in length and 30 feet in height.

The shake tables' versatility will enable earthquake engineers to conduct real-time dynamic hybrid testing -- a form of testing being pioneered by UB researchers that sets new standards in earthquake-engineering research. Powered by Mathworks and UB software, it combines shake table testing of portions of a structure with real-time computer simulations of the remainder of the structure. It will provide researchers with a more complete picture of how powerful earthquakes affect very large structures, including bridges and buildings, without having to test an entire structure.

"In the 1970s, then-UB President Robert Ketter and George Lee, then dean of the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, had a vision to establish UB as the preeminent earthquake engineering leader in the world," Karwan noted. "In 1983, UB opened a world-class earthquake-engineering laboratory and by 1986 landed the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research from NSF, putting UB on the global map.

"After more then two decades of award-winning scholarship, applied research and countless trained engineers," he added, "the impact on society has been remarkable.

"With the opening of the new NEES facility, we again are world leaders in the infrastructure required to continue our training and research and development activities at the highest level. Our faculty are stronger then ever and ready to achieve great things leveraging this cutting-edge facility."

According to Andrei Reinhorn and Michel Bruneau, principal investigators for the NEES facility, it also is equipped with a significantly expanded strong floor and 3-story reaction wall; high-capacity dynamic and static actuators that can apply forces of up to 1,800 tons, and a large-scale geotechnical laminar box for simulating soil-structure interactions during earthquakes.

"The new facility enhances the capabilities of UB's 20-year-old SEESL laboratory, which provided, and will continue to provide, world leadership in advanced protection of bridges, buildings and their contents against severe hazards such as earthquakes, windstorms and man-made disasters," said Reinhorn, Clifford C. Furnas Professor of Structural Engineering at UB and director of SEESL.

"With the new equipment, the laboratory will be able to test large, complex assemblies with a combination of testing equipment and supercomputers to predict with high accuracy the effects of costly disasters and provide adequate protections against them."

The NEES facility is equipped with high-definition television and real-time, networked teleconferencing and telepresence technologies, and is linked by ultra-high-speed Internet connections to other NEES nodes nationwide.

"The synergistic efforts of leading experts working together within the framework of large, coordinated collaborative projects are necessary for research to deliver the advances in knowledge needed to substantially enhance the resilience of communities against earthquakes and other hazards," said Bruneau, UB professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering and director of the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER), headquartered at UB.

"This new NEES facility allows us to complement our ongoing multidisciplinary collaborations with a large-scale networked laboratory modeled on that philosophy."

The NEES facility team consists of Reinhorn, principal investigator; Bruneau, senior co-principal investigator; Michael Constantinou, Andrew Whittaker and Theva Thevanayagam, co-principal investigators; Andre Filiatrault, technical advisor; Mettupalayam Sivaselvan, project engineer; Mark Pittman, lab manager; Jason Hanley, IT systems manager; Goran Josipovic, IT specialist, and Thomas Albrechcinski, project administrator.

UB has been an international leader in earthquake-engineering research for nearly three decades. In the 1970s, UB civil engineering faculty, recognizing the tremendous social and economic value of this type of research, began to build capabilities in structural dynamics and earthquake engineering. With funding from the State University of New York, UB in 1983 installed its first shake table -- the most versatile in the world at that time -- and established the Structural Engineering and Earthquake Simulation Laboratory (SEESL) inside Ketter Hall.

A $25 million grant from the National Science Foundation and additional SUNY funding in 1986 established at UB the nation's first National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research, now known as the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER). A consortium of researchers from numerous disciplines and institutions throughout the U.S., MCEER, headquartered at UB, is a National Science Foundation "Center of Excellence" in earthquake engineering.

The Federal Highway Administration since 1992 has awarded MCEER grants totaling more than $24 million to study seismic hazards to highways and develop tools and technologies to reduce seismic vulnerability of highway infrastructure. In 1997, MCEER was awarded an unprecedented 10-year NSF grant renewal.

Over the years, SEESL and MCEER have served many institutions and communities throughout the U.S. and around the world in the development of seismic protective systems and improvement of seismic resilience.

(Posted September 24, 2004)

Three Companies Receive Honors At UNYTECH04

The University at Buffalo has joined together with other colleges and universities throughout Upstate New York to host UNYTECH04, the second annual venture forum. Start-up technology companies, grown from discoveries and innovations within the college and university systems, presented their business model and investment pitch to group of over 175 venture capitalist, private investors, and service providers.

“Our universities in Upstate NY are a tremendous resource of intellectual capital,” said Robert J. Genco, DDS and PhD, University of Buffalo interim vice president for research and director of the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach, and UNYTECH planning committee chair.

“The ten participating universities have combined research and development expenditures totaling over $1 billion. This level of research translates into hundreds of commercialization opportunities,” said Genco. “At UNYTECH, we are showcasing a several university-affiliated start-up companies; the ones with proven technologies that represent the strongest growth opportunities.”

In total 13 companies presented at the event this year, reflecting the research strengths of participating institutions, including such industry sectors as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, materials, medical devices and nanotechnology among others. Three companies received top honors at the event:

Applied NanoWorks from Watervliet, NY, was awarded Best Overall Business Plan Presentation. Applied NanoWorks has developed a highly scalable process for manufacturing nanomaterials targeted to the semiconductor planarization market and the LED market.

Cerebral Assessment Systems, LLC, from Rochester, NY, was awarded Most Innovative Business Model. Cerebral Assessment Systems, Inc., specializes in clinical research and medical evaluation of new therapies for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Elecsci Corporation from Churchville, NY, was awarded Most Innovative Technology or Product. Elecsci develops embedded electron charge technology for use in energy harvesting, biohazard sensors, consumer products, filters and components for the wireless communications industry.

The event also drew sponsorship of over $40,000 from 16 different organizations. Hiscock & Barclay, LLP and the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research -Designated New York State Science and Technology Law Center at Syracuse University were Gold Sponsors of UNYTECH04.

Participating schools include Alfred University, Binghamton University, Cornell University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, State University of New York (SUNY), SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse University, University at Buffalo, and University of Rochester.

More information on UNYTECH can be found at www.unytech.org

(Posted September 20, 2004)

Search for New Markers for Sudden Cardiac Death to Focus on Patients at Risk for Catastrophic Disruption in Heart Rhythm

Sudden cardiac death each year claims the lives of more than 350,000 seemingly healthy men and women in the U.S., yet physicians continue to be perplexed about its underlying causes. A new study by investigators in the University at Buffalo Center for Research in Cardiovascular Medicine, one of the largest undertaken on sudden cardiac death (SCD), may help provide some answers.

Using positron emission topography (PET), the UB researchers will establish baseline heart function and related physiological measures in patients whose physicians consider them at potential risk for SCD and track their medical progress over the next five years.

The study, which is expected to enroll 360 patients, will be supported by a $3.56 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

Sudden cardiac death results from a catastrophic disruption in heart rhythm. Although patients who die as a result commonly are described as having had a "massive heart attack," the event is better characterized as an "electrical accident," said John M. Canty, M.D., professor of medicine and Albert and Elizabeth Rekate Chair in Cardiovascular Disease in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Canty and James A. Fallavollita, M.D., UB associate professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology, are co-principal investigators on the study.

"We currently have limited ability to identify the majority of patients at risk of SCD beyond the traditional risk factors for coronary heart disease," said Canty. "We know from autopsy results that most people who suffer sudden cardiac death have advanced coronary artery disease, but those who survive by rapid cardiac resuscitation frequently show no evidence of an acute heart attack or any symptoms of heart disease immediately prior to the aborted cardiac arrest."

Study investigators hypothesize that the presence of adaptations that develop in the heart in response to repetitive episodes of inadequate blood flow lead to electrical instability of the heart and may predict SCD. These adaptations, termed hibernating myocardium, occur commonly in one or more regions of the heart in many patients with depressed heart function, said Canty. The grant will be used to study this scenario in patients with depressed heart function considered at high risk for SCD.

The overall objective of the current study is to use PET images of blood flow, tissue viability and sympathetic nerve function, in conjunction with evidence of depressed heart function, to predict better which patients with heart disease require an implantable defibrillator to prevent SCD. The researchers also will determine how these "substrate" parameters change after an impending cardiac arrest is prevented by the defibrillator's discharge.

In a hibernating region of the heart, muscle cells don't receive enough blood due to long-standing coronary artery narrowing, but they adapt to this impairment by reducing their function and oxygen needs. This adaptive survival mechanism involves cellular changes that allow heart cells to remain alive, or viable. A total blockage of blood flow would lead to death and scarring of the heart muscle, resulting in non-viable myocardium or a "heart attack."

Hibernating myocardial cells, with their depressed function, appear to be out of sync with adjacent healthy myocardial cells. Not only do they function differently, said Canty, but they are somewhat larger than other cells and have a reduced supply of sympathetic nerves. This change in nerve supply can disrupt the normal heart rhythm, making the heart more vulnerable to fibrillation, which can cause death within minutes if the heart rhythm is not restored with a defibrillator.

Canty and colleagues also are studying this problem in the laboratory, where they create hibernating myocardium in pigs. When an animal goes into fibrillation, which would ordinarily be fatal, an implantable defibrillator delivers a shock, saving the animal and providing a living model of SCD to study. By monitoring what transpired in the heart cells leading up to a potentially fatal ventricular fibrillation, and analyzing the physiological and biochemical changes in the heart after a "rescued SCD syndrome," the researchers are gaining valuable and previously unknown information about hearts at risk of sudden death.

"Once an aborted sudden death episode occurs in pigs with hibernating myocardium, we can study the heart to identify the cellular and molecular changes that may contribute to the development of an arrhythmia," said Canty. "The clinical study we have designed stems directly from the laboratory work that we have conducted over several years and is an excellent example of translating basic science studies to advance the clinical care of patients with heart disease."

Patients accepted into the clinical study will undergo a PET scan to determine the presence and amount of hibernating myocardium, as well as alterations in sympathetic nerve function to the heart. Participants will be followed up by phone at three-month intervals to track their medical condition. A repeat PET scan will be performed in a small group of the patients if they receive a shock from their internal defibrillator.

"Through our research project and the aid of our volunteer participants, we hope to come up with a strategy to help physicians better predict the people who are most at risk of sudden cardiac death and therefore most likely to benefit from an implantable cardiac defibrillator," said Canty. "Our long-term goal is to develop better approaches to identify the lower-risk patients with coronary artery disease who still account for most of the sudden deaths each year.

"If we can identify new markers of SCD risk using approaches such as molecular imaging with PET, we can better target treatments to prevent it."

Co-investigators on the study are Michael S. Haka, Ph.D., of the UB-VA Center for Positron Emission Tomography, and Andrew J. Luisi, Jr., M.D., Arturo M. Valverde, M.D., and Susan P. Graham, M.D., of the UB Division of Cardiology. Robert A. deKemp, Ph.D., of the Cardiac PET Center, University of Ottawa; Arthur J. Moss, M.D., of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and Harold C. Strauss, M.D., chair of UB's Department of Physiology and Biophysics, are consultants in the study.

Preliminary research leading up to the clinical trial was supported in part by a grant from the John R. Oishei Foundation.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.

(Posted September 16, 2004)

Lisa Freeman Joins UB as ACE Fellow

Lisa C. Freemen, Ph.D., associate professor of pharmacology and director of mentored training at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University, will spend the 2004-05 academic year at the University at Buffalo as part of the American Council of Education (ACE) Fellows Program.

Freeman, one of 37 individuals participating in the ACE Fellows Program this year, will study the ways research universities impact regional economic development. She will explore ways to enhance multidisciplinary collaboration and broaden participation in research, as well as help UB to forge partnerships with other educational institutions, community organizations and businesses.

The ACE Fellows Program is the premier higher education leadership development program in the country. The fellowship combines seminars, interactive learning opportunities and placement at another university to offer ACE Fellows a unique learning experience. The ACE Fellows Program is the only national, individualized, long-term professional development program in higher education that provides on-the-job experience to benefit participating institutions.

Robert Genco, interim vice president for research and director of the Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach, will serve Freeman's primary mentor for the fellowship year.

Freeman received bachelor's, master's and doctor of veterinary medicine degrees from Cornell University, as well as a doctorate from The Ohio State University. She pursued post-doctoral training at the University of Rochester School of Medicine before joining the faculty of Kansas State University in 1994. Her research program is funded by the National Institutes of Health and focuses on ion channel function. Freeman also coordinates pre-college outreach activities and research training programs for veterinary students and house officers.

(Posted September 2, 2004)

UB Co-Sponsors Global Bio Pharma Conference

The University at Buffalo and the Global Bio Pharma Conference Group is sponsoring "Global Bio Pharma Conference -- 2004," a gathering of biopharmaceutical industry leaders, academicians, scientists, entrepreneurs and representatives from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to discuss "emerging issues, challenges and opportunities in the new millennium for biologicals, pharmaceuticals, clinical trials and diagnostics."

The meeting will be held Sept. 14-17 in Mumbai, India, the first time such a conference has been held on the Indian subcontinent. Madhavan Nair, research professor in the Department of Medicine in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, is a conference organizer.

Several UB faculty members will speak at the meeting, including Bruce Holm, executive director of the Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences; Woodrow W. Maggard, associate vice provost for science, technology transfer and economic outreach; Jamson Lwebuga-Mukasa, associate professor in the Department of Medicine, and Paresh Dandona, UB Distinguished Professor in the Department of Medicine.

Among the topics to be discussed are "Opportunities and Challenges in Global Outsourcing of Biologics and Pharmaceuticals," Advances in the R&D of Small Molecule Pharmaceuticals," "Advances in Bioprocess Development and Manufacturing" and "Patents, Compliance and Marketing in the New Era."

Conference registration is still open. For more information, contact Nair at 832-5790 or mnair@buffalo.edu, or go to the conference Web site at http://www.gbpcg.com.

(Posted August 31, 2004)

High-Performance UB Developed Swimsuits Provide Competitive Edge

A University at Buffalo research team has invented a new way to synthesize quantum dots -- luminescent nanocrystals made from semiconductor material.

Sometimes called artificial atoms, quantum dots have the potential to be used to build exciting new devices for biological and environmental sensing, quantum computing, lasers and telecommunications, among other applications.

The new technique developed by a team led by T.J. Mountziaris, Ph.D., professor of chemical and biological engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, enables precise control of particle size by using a microemulsion template formed by "self-assembly." The process involves the direct mixing of a nonpolar substance (heptane), a polar substance (formamide) and an amphiphilic substance or surfactant (a block copolymer) to form a uniform dispersion of heptane droplets in formamide, stabilized by the surfactant.

A patent is pending on the technique, which was described in a recent issue of the journal Langmuir. Mountziaris' co-researchers are Paschalis Alexandridis, Ph.D., UB professor of chemical and biological engineering; Athos Petrou, Ph.D., professor of physics in the UB College of Arts and Sciences; Georgios Karanikolos, a graduate student in the UB Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; and Grigorios Itskos, a graduate student in the UB Department of Physics.

Using the technique, the UB researchers demonstrated the controlled synthesis of zinc selenide (ZnSe) quantum dots that exhibit size-dependent luminescence. When excited by ultraviolet light, quantum dots emit a particular fluorescent color and brightness, depending on the dot's size. The problem for scientists has been devising simple techniques to control the size of quantum dots, which would give them the ability to control a quantum dot's color properties. Such control is a critical factor in the quantum dot's functionality.

The ZnSe quantum dots have potential for use in clinical and therapeutic diagnostics and for DNA analysis. The dots may be used, for example, as biological tags, attaching themselves to diseased cells, tumors or particular genes, alerting scientists to their presence in the body or in biological samples.

"The luminescent properties of quantum dots make them ideal for such applications," Mountziaris explains.

The technique developed by Mountziaris and co-researchers gives them the ability to precisely control the size (and luminescence wavelength) of the ZnSe dots in one step. The researchers were able grow ZnSe dots inside "nanoreactors" formed by the heptane nanodroplets of the emulsion. By reacting hydrogen selenide gas with diethyl-zinc (DEZn) dissolved in the heptane, a single quantum dot is grown in each nanoreactor, allowing precise control of particle size by simply controlling the initial concentration of DEZn in the heptane. Small clusters of ZnSe nucleate in each heptane nanodroplet and fuse into one particle by a process called coalescence. The researchers run the process at room temperature, but still obtain crystalline particles.

"Since we run the process at room temperature, we were expecting amorphous particles or crystalline particles with many defects. To our surprise, we obtained almost perfect crystals," Mountziaris says. "We believe that the localized energy release during cluster-cluster coalescence is the key to forming single crystalline particles.

"The energy released anneals the particles and leads to perfect crystals," he adds.

ZnSe quantum dots created by this technique have maintained their luminescent properties for more than a year.

To make quantum dots useful for practical applications, functional molecules must be attached to their surface after they are synthesized, Mountziaris explains.

"Researchers are creating biological tags of certain colors based on quantum dots by decorating their surface with functional molecules that selectively attach to a specific biological molecule," he says. "This gives the molecules something like a tail light, and you could follow them in the body by exciting their luminescence with ultraviolet light."

Mountziaris' group is collaborating with UB bioengineers to use quantum dots in DNA analysis.

"The challenge of quantum-dot technology has been how to make dots of a precise size, how to functionalize the surface and also scale up the process for commercial applications," Mountziaris says. "Our technique can be scaled up very easily because it is based on self-assembly and does not depend on mixing efficiency or process time to control the size of the dots. We have demonstrated 'dial-a-size' capability."

"One nanoreactor makes one quantum dot," he adds. "My colleague, Paschalis Alexandridis, and our student, George Karanikolos, have developed a very stable microemulsion that has very slow droplet-droplet interactions. This prevents agglomeration of the nanocrystals after they are formed, which can adversely affect their properties. It is also responsible for the remarkable stability of the quantum dot loaded emulsion."

Mountziaris and co-researchers are at work synthesizing additional compounds, such as cadmium selenide and lead selenide to cover a wide spectrum of luminescence wavelengths. They also are developing functional water-soluble caps for the quantum dots that would enable their use as biological tags, without diminishing the dots' luminescence.

Multicolor quantum dots could be used to create "optical bar codes" from a sequence of joined quantum dots possessing different luminescent properties, Mountziaris says. "This would be very useful in multiplexed experiments by assigning a different function to different groups of dots and tracking them as they attach to different biomolecules," he explains.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York. UB's more than 27,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree programs.

(Posted August 3, 2004)

Researchers Invent Novel Way to Synthesize Quantum Dots

A University at Buffalo research team has invented a new way to synthesize quantum dots -- luminescent nanocrystals made from semiconductor material.

"The luminescent properties of quantum dots make them ideal for such applications," Mountziaris explains.

"The energy released anneals the particles and leads to perfect crystals," he adds.

ZnSe quantum dots created by this technique have maintained their luminescent properties for more than a year.

To make quantum dots useful for practical applications, functional molecules must be attached to their surface after they are synthesized, Mountziaris explains.

Mountziaris' group is collaborating with UB bioengineers to use quantum dots in DNA analysis.

(Posted August 3, 2004)

Summer 2004 Inside STOR Newsletter

Download a PDF by clicking here.

(Posted July 20, 2004)

UB Recognizes Faculty Scholars, Inventors and Entrepreneurs at Reception

By Lorraine O.W. Stinebiser, UB STOR Staff Associate

The University at Buffalo recognized 56 faculty members and researchers at the Scholars, Inventors and Entrepreneurs Reception held from today in the Center for Tomorrow on the UB North (Amherst) Campus.

The annual reception honors the research and commercialization achievements of faculty members in the following categories: Exceptional Scholars Awards, U.S. Patents, Start-up Businesses, Licenses to Industrial Partners, Product Development Fund Awards and Center for Advanced Technology (CAT) in Biomedical and Bioengineering Awards.

Additionally the university honored Molcan USA and Wallace Wireless, two companies that joined the UB Technology Incubator program in 2003.

The reception was co-hosted by UB President John B. Simpson and Interim Provost Robert J. Genco, who is head of the university's Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR). State University of New York Chancellor Robert L. King also attended the event.

"The remarkable achievements of our superb faculty merit special recognition," said King. "The University at Buffalo's scholars have produced extraordinary accomplishments in all phases of scientific inquiry. I am delighted to play a small part in recognizing these intellectual giants."

Noting his pleasure in honoring UB faculty members for their outstanding accomplishments, Simpson said: "Their excellence demonstrates the depth of our university's diverse research activities, as well as our commitment to our civic responsibility as New York State's most comprehensive public research university."

Genco added, "These activities are the result of the first-rate science and research of UB faculty and our collaborations with researchers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute and Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute. And it is important for us to honor and recognize the contributions of up-and-coming and accomplished faculty members for their body of work.

"The discoveries of this esteemed group feed the pipeline of knowledge and technology that is then transferred to the public for the benefit of society," Genco added.

Over the past year, STOR has seen an increase in commercialization activities as a direct impact of the New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences. Genco noted that more than half of the honorees have an interest in bioinformatics and life-sciences initiatives at UB.

"We are dedicated to continually expanding the boundaries of human knowledge and achievement, and to sharing the benefits of our discoveries locally, statewide, nationally and across the globe," Simpson added. "Our faculty is comprised of talented scholars who are truly dedicated to this charge, and I look forward to even greater research achievement across our university in the years ahead."

• David Hershenov, Department of Philosophy, College of Arts and Sciences

• Guofang Li, Department of Learning and Instruction, Graduate School of Education

• Athena Mutua, Law School

• Holger Schunemann, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

• Feng Qin, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

• Ellen Smit, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Health Professions

Recipients of the Exceptional Scholars Sustained Achievement Awards were:

• Carol Brewer, School of Nursing

• Catherine Cornbleth, Department of Learning and Instruction, Graduate School of Education

• Richard Donahue, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Health Professions

• Markus Dubber, Law School

• Winston Lin, Department of Management Science and Systems, School of Management

• Claes Lundgren, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

• Richard Ohrbach, Department of Oral Diagnostic Sciences, School of Dental Medicine

• David Pendergast, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

• Jerrold Winter, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

The following faculty members were recognized for being named on U.S. patents awarded to the Research Foundation of the State of New York in 2003:

• Paras N. Prasad and Earl J. Bergey, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, patent 6,514,481, Magnetic Nanoparticles for Selective Therapy. This invention involves nanosized particles or magnetic "nanoclinics," thin silica bubbles that may assist in the treatment of cancer patients. It has been licensed to Nanobiotix of France. Co-inventors are Laurent Levy and Charles Liebow.

• Jim D. Atwood, David C. Hoth and Cynthia A. Hoover, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, patent 6,521,772, Synthesis of Substituted Ruthenocene Complexes. This invention is for novel chemistries to create thin films based on ruthenium that can enable continued performance gains in future semiconductor devices. Co-inventor is Michael Alexander Lienhard.

• Frank V. Bright, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, patents 6,582,966 and 6,589,797, Microsensor Arrays and Method of Using Same for Detecting Analytes. This novel chemical sensor element is used to construct chemically responsive microsensor arrays atop a light emitting diode (LED). Co-inventors are Brett R. Wenner, Meagan A. Doody and Gary A. Baker, all former UB students.

• Paschalis Alexandridis and Sriram Neelamegham, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, patent 6,589,797, Recovery of Liquids from Absorbent Packaging Materials. This invention is for a method for recovery of aqueous samples or components from polymer packaging materials. It has been licensed to Technicor Inc., a developer of packaging and handling systems for the biomedical marketplace located in the UB Technology Incubator.

• Bradley P. Fuhrman and Mark S. Dowhy, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, patent 6,591,836, Device and Method of Reducing Bias Flow in Oscillatory Ventilators. This invention is designed to reduce the chance of lung injuries often associated with existing oscillatory ventilators by providing necessary oxygen through a gentle vibration.

• Eli Ruckenstein, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, patent 6,639,013, Method of Making Graft, Block-Graft and Star-Shaped Copolymers by In-Situ Coupling Reaction. This invention involves a faster and more cost-effective method to prepare graft, block and star-shaped copolymers with complex molecular architectures and multiple components. Co-inventor is Hongmin Zhang

• Thenkurussi Kesavadas, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, patent 6,654,656, Rapid Informational Prototypes, Including Rapid Colored Prototypes. The invention is a system for layered colorings of 3-dimensional objects allowing for more realistic and attractive 3-dimensional color patterns. Co-inventor is Kirk C. Stalis.

• Joseph A. Gardella, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, patent 6,670,190, Method for Testing the Degradation of Polymeric Materials. The invention is a novel method for monitoring the surface concentration of a drug in a polymer blend matrix and its reaction kinetics. Co-inventors are Norma Hernandez de Gatica and Joo-Woon Lee.

• Troy D. Wood, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, patent 6,670,607, Conductive Polymer Coated Nano-Electrospray Emitter, which has an electrically conductive polymer coating that is extremely resistant to electrical discharge. This patent is licensed to Nanogenesys, a UB faculty start-up company located at the UB Technology Incubator. Co-inventors are E. Peter Maziarz III, Sarah A. Lorenz and Thomas P. White.

The following faculty members who started a business based on their research were recognized for their entrepreneurial spirit:

• David Hangauer, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, who founded Kinex Pharmaceuticals along with Allen Barnett and Lyn Dyster. Kinex is based on applications of Hangauer's novel patented drug-discovery methodology focused on kinase inhibitors to treat cancer.

• Eliot Winer, formerly of UB, together with Christina Bloebaum and Kenneth English, both of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Michael Brummer, founded Visual Design Systems, an online visualization and design provider that utilizes copyrighted design and engineering software.

• Sargur N. Srihari, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, along with Yong-Chul Shin, founded CedarTech. The company focuses on products and solutions for the computer interpretation of patterns, including document analysis and recognition tasks.

The following faculty members invented technologies that were licensed to an industrial partner in 2003:

• Paras N. Prasad and Earl J. Bergey, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, with collaborators Charles Liebow and Laurent Levy, developed Magnetic Nanoparticles for Selective Therapy, which was licensed to Nanobiotix of France

• Tom Suchyna and Frederick Sachs, both of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, with collaborator Janice DelMar, developed Peptide to Block Mechanically Activated Ion Channels, which was licensed to Peptide Institute, Inc., of Japan

• X. Y. Zheng, Sandra McFadden and Donald Henderson, all of the Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, with collaborator Bo Hua Hu, developed Prevention or Reversal of Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SNHL) through Biological Mechanisms, which was licensed to American BioHealth Group of California

• UB Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition (CEDAR), including, Sargur N. Srihari, Venugopal Govindaraju, Sangjik Lee, Vemulapati Ramanaprasad, Zhixin Shi, Xia Liu, Fred Kunderman, Phil Kilinskas, Srirangaraj Setlur, Dave Bartnik, Wen-Jann Yang and Ajay Shekhawat, with collaborators Bin Zhang, Catalin Tomai, Sung-Hyuk Cha and Yong-Chul Shin, developed User Interface for Forensic Document Examination System, which is licensed to CedarTech of Williamsville

The following faculty members were recipients of assistance from the 2003 UB Product Development Fund, designed to assist faculty in further developing their inventions for commercialization:

• Stephen Rudin, Division of Radiological Physics, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, for the research project entitled Asymmetric, Variable Porosity Stents For Cerebrovascular Aneurysm

• Hiroaki Suga, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, for the research project entitled De Novo Genetic Coding System for Proteomics

• David G. Hangauer, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, for the research project entitled Molecular Target Laboratory Development

• Bradley P. Fuhrman, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, for the research project entitled Ventilator Delivery of Volatile Liquids and Therapeutic Gases

• Richard Salvi, Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, for the research project SykofizX Software Application

The following faculty members were recipients of assistance from the 2003 New York State Center for Advanced Technology in Biomedical and Bioengineering, which supports university-industry collaboration to accelerate commercialization of biomedical or bioengineering devices:

• Kenneth English, New York State Center for Engineering Design and Industrial Innovation (NYSCEDII), with industry partner ThatsIt, LLC, for "Surgical Instrument Cleaning Technology"

• Jeffrey Lackner, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, with industry partner SmartPill Diagnostics, Inc., for "SmartPill: Device for Portable, Noninvasive Motility Recording"

• Richard Bankert, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, with industrial partner TherapyX, Inc., for the research project "Interleukin-10 Microspheres Drug Delivery System for IBD Therapy"

• Kenneth English, NYSCEDII, with industrial partner Gaymar Industries, Inc., for the research project "Virtual Prototyping and Simulation for Pressure Ulcer Management"

• Albert H. Titus, Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and industrial partner Calspan-UB Research Center for the research project "Unobtrusive Biometric Sense, Transmit, Access and Respond System"

• Edward Niles, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, with industrial partner Calspan-UB Research Center for the research project "Novel Inhibitors of Poxvirus Replication"

• Thomas Mang, Department of Oral And Maxillofacial Surgery, School of Dental Medicine, with industry partner NY Painless Surgery Technology, LLC, for the research project "Painless Laser Surgery Maxillofacial Area Mapping System"

STOR is the university's interface between the inventive work of laboratory research and commercial development that brings its benefits to market. It works with businesses to license university-developed technologies, researchers to develop emerging technologies with commercial viability and entrepreneurs to start new business ventures.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.

(Posted May 26, 2004)

Prasad receives Morley Medal

By Ellen Goldbaum, UB Senior Science Editor

Paras Prasad, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences and Samuel P. Capen Chair, has been awarded the 2004 Morley Medal by the Cleveland section of the American Chemical Society.

The Morley Medal is given annually by the Cleveland Section of the ACS to a chemist for outstanding contributions to chemistry while residing in an area within a 250-mile radius of Cleveland.

PRASAD

The Morley Award Symposium and Banquet, held in Prasad's honor on May 26 in Cleveland at John Carroll University, featured speakers from industry and academia, including two national academy members.

Prasad addressed the banquet with a talk entitled, "Emerging Opportunities at the Interface of Nanochemistry, Photonics and Biomedical Sciences."

Founder as well as executive director of UB's Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics, Prasad is an early pioneer widely recognized by the international community for seminal contributions to the field of nonlinear optical effects and photonics.

His work has provided the guiding principles for chemical design of nonlinear optical materials.

Currently, Prasad is making scientific breakthroughs in two emerging research areas: biophotonics—the way biological matter interacts with light—and nanophotonics, the interaction of matter with light at the nanoscale.

He also is the author of the first comprehensive books in each of these fields: "Biophotonics" (John Wiley & Sons, 2003) and "Nanophotonics" (John Wiley & Sons, 2004).

This interdisciplinary research has won him international recognition and resulted in several patented inventions that involve novel biophotonic materials with applications ranging from photodynamic cancer therapy to bioimaging to new dimensions in drug therapy made possible by nanomedicine.

A 1997 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Prasad is a fellow of the Optical Society of America and the American Physical Society.

He has published more than 460 scientific papers and co-edited six major books in the field of photonics materials and co-authored the widely-used text and reference "Introduction to Nonlinear Optical Effects in Molecules and Polymers."

As the organizer of six "International Conferences on Frontiers of Polymers and Advanced Materials" during the past 15 years, Prasad has played a major international role in the field, bringing together scientists, engineers and government representatives of developing countries in order to develop a global infrastructure for advanced materials and emerging technologies.

Prasad also is the recipient of an Excellence in the Pursuit of Knowledge Award from SUNY Chancellor Robert L. King.

In addition to his appointment in the Department of Chemistry Prasad holds appointments in the departments of Physics, Medicine and Electrical Engineering.

(Posted May 20, 2004)

Spring 2004 Inside STOR Newsletter

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(Posted April 30, 2004)

Aiding Assistive Technology - Center Awarded $4.75 Million Grant

By Lois Baker, UB Senior Health Sciences Editor

The Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology Transfer (T_RERC) at UB has received a $4.75 million, five-year grant from the National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) to research, evaluate, transfer and commercialize assistive devices for persons with disabilities.

LidsOff™ Automatic Jar Opener

The grant was announced today at a news conference by President John B. Simpson.

The T_RERC, which is beginning its third competitive five-year grant cycle, facilitates introduction of new and improved products into the marketplace to meet employment, education, recreation and independent-living needs of people with disabilities. This latest grant brings total federal funding of the center to $16.75 million.

Since its inception, the T_RERC, with its community-based partner, the Western New York Independent Living Center, has put 21 new products into the hands of consumers.

One of the most successful recent examples of T_RERC's collaboration with industry is the Black & Decker® LidsOff™ Automatic Jar Opener, which was introduced in June 2003. The jar opener is a boon to persons with poor grip strength.

The center is one unit under the umbrella of UB's Center for Assistive Technology, which is part of the School of Public Health and Health Professions. Maurizio Trevisan, interim dean of the school and a professor in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, said the renewal is a clear indication of the ongoing importance of the center's work.

"The fact that the center is entering its third five-year grant cycle validates the outstanding work done to date by center investigators and staff, and their insights into the future," Trevisan said.

"The grant is particularly gratifying because it builds on UB's pioneering work in the field of assistive devices and technology, which exemplifies the overarching mission of the School of Public Health and Health Professions—to improve the health and quality of life of Western New Yorkers and residents of New York State."

Stephen M. Bauer, clinical assistant professor of rehabilitation science and director of the T_RERC, said the new grant will support several new endeavors.

"In the next five years, the center will carry out four development projects aimed at introducing new products into the marketplace, and complete four research projects that will advance the state of the art of the technology transfer discipline," said Bauer.

Three of the development projects will continue the center's work in shepherding promising products to the marketplace, he noted. Researchers will concentrate on validating technology needs of the assistive-technology industry, finding solutions to those needs, and integrating consumers' functional requirements into new products.

The final development project will involve collaboration with the UB School of Informatics, Bauer said. This project will help the national network of Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers and the broader community of technology-transfer organizations make better use of technology-transfer methods and knowledge.

Three of the T_RERC research projects will focus on defining effective technology-transfer practices, Bauer said. Researchers will analyze case studies of especially successful products, review federal technology-transfer programs for effectiveness, and conduct market research on relevant industry sectors.

The fourth research project will involve laboratory and home trials of transferred and marketed products to assess the value and utility of these products to consumers.

"Collectively, these projects will generate new knowledge necessary to improve on the theory and practice of technology transfer, both for the field of assistive technology and beyond," Bauer said.

The new grant builds on the center's past success in bringing products to the marketplace that help solve lifestyle and safety problems for persons with disabilities.

In addition to the Black & Decker® LidsOff™ Automatic Jar Opener, new products developed by the center include:

The "Accenda Accessible Remote Control," another new product, is a voice-operated, remote-control unit for home-entertainment systems, including DVD and TV equipment, VCRs and stereos. The Accenda allows persons with impaired vision and mobility to control all functions of these products with voice commands.
The PowerCheq™, a revolutionary battery-management system for power wheelchairs and scooters, extends battery life up to 300 percent and increases the daily operating time by more than 20 percent without increasing the battery size. The PowerCheq™ saves the user hundreds of dollars annually and significantly improves user safety, Bauer said.
"UpStop," a newly patented braking system for manual wheelchairs, engages a set of brakes automatically when the occupant begins to exit, preventing the wheelchair from rolling forward or backward and dislodging the occupant.

Bauer said several more products, some of which will improve radically the way persons with disabilities live their lives, are in the pipeline and will advance to the marketplace with the help of the center's new grant.

(Posted April 22, 2004)

Satish Tripathi Named Provost of University at Buffalo

By Arthur Page, UB Vice President

Satish K. Tripathi, Ph.D., dean of the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California, Riverside, has been named provost of the University at Buffalo by UB President John B. Simpson. Tripathi, who will take office as UB's chief academic officer on July 1, has been dean of the engineering college and the William R. Johnson, Jr. Family Distinguished Professor of Engineering at UC Riverside since 1997. He also served as acting executive vice chancellor from March 2002 through June 2002.

Incoming Provost Satish Tripathi addresses the university community as President John B. Simpson looks on.
PHOTO: NANCY J. PARISI

Prior to joining UC Riverside, he was a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, where his 19 years as a faculty member in the department included being chair from 1988-95.

Tripathi is an internationally accomplished computer scientist who has been involved in substantial funded research. He has published more than 200 scholarly papers, supervised 25 doctoral students and served on program committees of numerous international conferences.

"I am very honored and pleased to name Satish Tripathi as UB's new provost," said Simpson. "Satish is a man of the highest integrity and personal scholarly distinction. He is very intelligent, analytical and has built a first-rate faculty at Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California, Riverside in a short period of time. Following a strategic plan, he expanded the college from a single department and one research center to four departments and five interdisciplinary research centers. In doing so, he demonstrated commitment to both undergraduate and graduate programs and students.

"Satish also is keenly interested in, and knowledgeable about, the relationship between a university community and industrial partners, including intellectual property and technology transfer," Simpson added.

"I am delighted that the search process for a new provost, launched just three months ago, produced three outstanding finalists who visited campus last month and has led to the selection of Satish Tripathi as UB provost."

The search committee was named by Simpson to identify a successor to Elizabeth D. Capaldi, Ph.D., who resigned earlier this year to become SUNY vice chancellor and chief of staff, interviewed 12 candidates from a field of more than 40 who were nominated for the post. Based on its interviews and candidates' records of achievement and references, the committee invited Tripathi and two other finalists to participate in March in two-day visits to UB during which they had an opportunity to meet with students, faculty, deans, university officers and members of the administrative staff.

The committee was chaired by A. Scott Weber, professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and director of UB's Center for Integrated Waste Management.

"As an accomplished scholar and proven administrator, Professor Tripathi will help chart a path to sustained and enhanced excellence for all of UB," Weber said. "He is a person of great energy, warmth and collegiality, whose style will mesh wonderfully with President Simpson's. It is exciting for all of UB to have a dynamic leadership team in place. I am delighted that Professor Tripathi has accepted the UB provost position."

Diane R. Christian, a member of the search committee who is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of English in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, noted that with the selection of Tripathi, "UB gets a distinguished scholar, a supple intelligence and a delightful person. He has vision, strength and humor. He taught a Google inventor. He's a prize and we're very happy to welcome him."

Tripathi said he is "delighted to be selected as UB's next provost. This is an opportunity to join a very good institution that is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), and to join with President Simpson in taking it to greater heights.

"The University at Buffalo," Tripathi added, "has tremendous potential. I am most impressed with its comprehensiveness and the educational opportunities provided to students through its more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. With its full complement of professional schools and vast array of research centers, it also has the parts in place to be a leading university. UB also is a very important part of the community, with strong relationships with the business and corporate community upon which to build to the benefit of the university and the region."

UC Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering is one of the fastest growing schools of engineering in the U.S. Under Tripathi's leadership, it has grown from a single department and one research center to four departments and five interdisciplinary research centers. The number of students has grown from 550 to approximately 2,000 and approximately 50 new faculty members have been recruited. The number of graduate students has grown from 37 to 289 in master's and doctoral programs.

Tripathi said that in expanding the college and its programs, his vision has been for it to become "a top-25 engineering school" and a nationally recognized leader in engineering research and education. Toward that goal, he developed a five-year strategic plan and has recruited professors from top-ranked engineering departments.

Under his leadership, the college also has enhanced the experience of undergraduate students, implemented a strategic communications plan, and created a development and alumni affairs office. During the past two years, the college has led the university's development efforts, raising approximately $6.5 million per year. Tripathi also has established a College Council of Advisors, consisting of senior executives from local and national corporations, as well as an Industrial Affiliates Program, the membership fees of which provide discretionary funds for scholarships, equipment and events.

Tripathi has worked closely with civic leaders in Riverside to attract and retain high-tech companies. He serves on the board of directors of SmartRiverside, a nonprofit organization working to educate citizens on technology issues that recently launched a free, wireless Internet service in downtown Riverside.

He has been the guest editor or guest co-editor of several scientific journals and is a founding member of the editorial board of IEEE Pervasive Computing. A member of the editorial board of International Journal of High-Speed Networks, he previously was on the editorial boards of Theoretical Computer Science, IEEE Transactions on Computers, ACM Multimedia Systems and ACM/IEEE Transactions on Networking.

Tripathi is a fellow of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He was a visiting professor at the University of Paris-Sud in France and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany while at the University of Maryland.

A native of India, Tripathi graduated top of his class from Banaras Hindu University in India in 1968. In addition to a doctorate in computer science that he earned from the University of Toronto in 1979, he holds three master's degrees -- one in computer science from the University of Toronto (1976) and two in statistics from the University of Alberta (1974) and Banaras Hindu University (1970).

(Posted April 21, 2004)

$1.5 Million NIH Grant to Support Work on Blood Substitute

By Lois Baker, UB Senior Health Sciences Editor

A patient who is losing large amounts of blood presents a medical emergency, requiring proper blood-typing and immediate access to multiple units of compatible blood.

A vial of the blood substitute can replace half the blood supply of a young child. Pictured are, from left, researchers Claes Lundgren, Ingvald Tyssebotn and Gurl Bergoe.
PHOTO: JOHN DELLA CONTRADA

Health workers must hope that transfusing large amounts of blood doesn't add to the emergency and that the patient has no objection to receiving blood products. Then there are the cost and logistics of maintaining large stocks of blood at the ready.

The solution to these problems may lie in an inorganic compound with the cumbersome name dodecaflouropentane emulsion, or DDFPe, a fluorocarbon-based compound used originally as a contrast medium for taking ultrasound images that UB researchers are developing as a blood substitute.

Claes Lundgren, professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, is principal researcher on a new $1.5 million, four-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund work to define further the compound's use for this purpose.

Lundgren holds up a vial containing the milky emulsion that is half the size of a roll of breath mints. "These five milliliters would be adequate to save the life of a child weighing 10-15 kilograms (26-40 pounds) who had lost half his/her blood supply," he said.

Hugh Van Liew, professor emeritus of physiology, and Mark Burkard, who worked with Van Liew as his research assistant, did the initial work to establish DDFPe's use as an oxygen transporter. Lundgren, Van Liew, Burkard and Ingvald Tyssebotn, professor of physiology and biophysics, hold the patent on the product's use as a blood substitute.

The key to this product's ability to prevent hemorrhagic shock lies in the capacity of the emulsion's invisible droplets to expand at body temperature into microbubbles small enough to pass through capillaries, and the strong affinity of the microbubbles for oxygen. If sufficient circulation remains to carry the bubbles to the lungs, they can pick up oxygen and deliver it to tissues.

Nearly all other blood substitutes currently in use or in development are based on hemoglobin, the iron molecule that carries oxygen. Hemoglobin products are expensive and can cause hypertension, Lundgren said. Moreover, they raise some of the same concerns associated with any blood product, and can't be used in persons who refuse transfusion for religious or other reasons.

DDFPe circumvents all the hazards associated with the use of blood products and is 500 times more effective than other fluorocarbon-based blood substitutes, Lundgren said. "We know that if it is administered soon after blood loss, the product has a dramatic effect. Very small amounts introduced into the circulation of a pig after severe blood loss can save the animal from hemorrhagic shock."

His current research will concentrate on finding out how soon the treatment must occur after bleeding begins. The goal is to postpone collapse of the circulatory system during severe blood loss for at least four hours. Researchers will gather physiological and biochemical data relating to the effects of severe blood loss on organs and tissues throughout the investigation.

"Our findings should help to lay a solid foundation for pursuing FDA approval for human use of this blood substitute," Lundgren said. "In the best of circumstances, it would be carried in every ambulance."

Tyssebotn and Guri Bergoe from the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Gerald Logue from the Department of Medicine and Peter Nickerson from the Department of Pathology are co-investigators on the grant.

(Posted April 15, 2004)

UB Announces Enhancement of Bioinformatics Center, Seven New Units Join Core Bioinformatics Component

Written by Arthur Page, UB Assitant Vice President

The University at Buffalo today announced it is adding seven new units to the core component of bioinformatics to enhance its Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences.

Bruce A. Holm, Ph.D., who as a senior vice provost has been UB's point person on many of its high-technology and life-sciences projects, has been appointed executive director of the center.

In addition to bioinformatics, Holm will oversee units in molecular targeting, gene expression, proteomics and structural biology, disease modeling, and pharmacokinetics, as well as a clinical research center and an Interventional Population Health Observatory.

With the expansion, the number of UB faculty researchers affiliated with the center will increase from its present core of six outstanding faculty members, to 40-50 current faculty members working across multidisciplinary lines, including scientists from Roswell Park Cancer Institute and Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI). The center will continue to recruit aggressively for key scientific personnel.

"The expansion and enhancement of the Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences is consistent with the vision of Gov. George Pataki when he proposed its creation three years ago and a major step in providing an integrated approach for creating a life-sciences economy for Buffalo Niagara," said UB President John B. Simpson, Ph.D.

"The expanded center will draw upon existing faculty and research strengths at the university and within its professional schools, as well as at our partner institutions. UB's collaboration with Roswell Park and Hauptman-Woodward is deep-rooted; new collaborative efforts realized through the expanded center will strengthen all three institutions in fulfilling their missions."

Simpson noted that more than $290 million has been obtained in support of the Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences from state, federal and philanthropic sources, as well as from business partners.

"By expanding the scope of the center, these funds will be used optimally through leveraging of the resources and capabilities of the university and its life-sciences partners and increasing synergies among scientists affiliated with the center," Simpson added.

He noted that work is on schedule for the new home for the center, scheduled to open late next year at Ellicott and Virginia streets. The structure -- along with Roswell Park's new Center for Genetics and Pharmacology and HWI's Structural Biology Research Center -- is under construction as part of the Buffalo Life Sciences Complex in the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

Simpson noted, "It's a difficult and challenging proposition to expand a region's economic base from one anchored traditionally in manufacturing to one that includes a life-sciences foundation; experience in other parts of the U.S. has shown it takes years for this occur. This broader conceptualization of the center's scope and structure we are announcing today is designed to facilitate that process and is consistent with earlier long-term plans for fostering a strong life-sciences economy in the Buffalo-Niagara region."Robert J. Genco, D.D.S., Ph.D., UB interim provost and head of its Office of Science, Technology and Economic Outreach (STOR), the goal of which is to bolster technology transfer and economic development in the region, had high praise for Holm.

Genco said, "The newly expanded Center of Excellence announced by the President Simpson needs a science administrator to oversee the design and utilization of the new bioinformatics building, to continue recruiting scientists, to obtain further research and development funds and to champion the commercialization of Center of Excellence discoveries for the benefit of society and for regional economic development. Bruce Holm is well-suited to lead this effort,"

Genco added that Holm has personal experience with successful commercialization of research results -- his research on therapeutics for acute lung disease secured two patents that resulted in the development of Infasurf®, a drug that has helped reduce the rate of mortality for pre-term newborns.

"Bruce has served admirably as the university's point person on many of its high-technology/bio-technology projects since his appointment in January 2002 as a senior vice provost," Genco noted. "He has been the chief administrator in the provost's office for the Center of Excellence, Strategically Targeted Academic Research (STAR) Center for Disease Modeling and Therapy Discovery, and the Center for Advanced Biomedical and Bioengineering Technologies (CAT). He also has worked closely with UB's Office of Science, Technology and Economic Outreach."

Genco said Holm also has worked collaboratively and successfully with UB's academic partners, including Roswell Park and HWI, and with the university's partners in the local business community and with major corporations.

Holm is a professor in the departments of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Pharmacology and Toxicology in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Science. As an associate ean of the medical school, he oversaw the design, equipping and use of the Biomedical Research Building on UB's South (Main Street) Campus.

He also has been an integral part of the economic and scientific development of the Center for Excellence and has been instrumental in the recruitment of major corporate partnerships and researchers. He recently received a Partners in Leadership Award from the State University of New York for his role in the center's development.

An honors graduate of the University of Iowa, where he earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry, Holm earned a master's degree and doctorate in toxicology from the University of Rochester School of Medicine in 1985 and 1987, respectively.

Gov. George E. Pataki proposed creation of the Center of Excellence in 2001 as an engine to spur economic development and create thousands of high-technology jobs, helping to lay the foundation for a new life-sciences economy for Buffalo Niagara. It was proposed along with creation of other Centers of Excellence in Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and Long Island as part of an effort to leverage the state's expertise in high technologies, attract new businesses and improve the state's economy. Construction of the structure at Ellicott and Virginia streets is being funded through $52 million in state funds.

Through the efforts of Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Charles E. Schumer and Rep. Jack Quinn, the Center of Excellence has to date accumulated $20.4 million in federal funding, well on the way to meeting the long-range goal of $25 million in federal funding for the project.

Major philanthropic support also has been received by the Center of Excellence. The John R. Oishei Foundation has invested more than $3.5 million in the recruitment, salaries and research for scientists at the center, as well as $3.5 million each to Roswell Park and HWI for the buildings they are constructing within the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. The Margaret L. Wendt Foundation has awarded grants totaling $4.5 million to the UB, HWI and Roswell Park to encourage collaboration and reinforce connectivity among the three buildings.

An important aspect of the Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences is its interaction with industrial partners that will facilitate commercialization efforts of its discoveries, job creation and joint research opportunities. The companies include Invitrogen, Cognigen, General Dynamics, General Electric, Amersham, 3M, SGI, IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Micro Systems, Informax and AT&T.

UB officials are working closely with the business community and key organizations -- including BuffLink, Buffalo Niagara Enterprise and Buffalo Niagara Partnership -- to facilitate and accelerate the results from technology transfer and commercialization of cutting-edge research by UB scientists, including those affiliated with the Center of Excellence, leading to new jobs in Buffalo with existing biotech firms and ones being attracted to the area by its emerging life-sciences economy.

(Posted April 7, 2004)

Invention by UB Team Could Revolutionize Decontamination and Purification of Water and Other Liquids

Written by John Della Contrada, UB National Media Director/Senior Editor

With the turn of a screw, a team of University at Buffalo engineers and scientists has invented a pump to be used in a device that may help revolutionize the decontamination and purification of water, juices and other liquids.

Working closely with Synergena, Inc., the team led by Abani Patra, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has designed a screw pump that could dramatically improve a method of decontamination that uses photonics to eradicate -- within minutes -- dangerous bacteria, viruses and other contaminants, such as E. coli, salmonella and anthrax.

Called Synergistic Isogenous Active Decontamination (SIAD), the method was developed by Synergena, which may license from UB the screw-pump invention for manufacture of the SIAD ER N-T Pasteurizer (Equidistributed Radiant energy Non-Thermal Pasteurizer).

"The screw pump invention by the Patra team at UB, coupled with Synergena's unique SIAD technology, offers tremendous potential in municipal/wastewater purification, decontamination of Great Lakes-polluting ballast from ocean vessels and commercial processing of human-consumption liquids such as orange juice and apple cider," says Robert Duthie, CEO of Synergena.

"The SIAD process offers unprecedented potential to destroy deadly microorganisms," Duthie adds. "It outperforms any other system -- chlorination, heat pasteurization, filtration and single-spectrum UV radiation -- by a wide margin."

Development of Patra's screw pump and subsequent testing was funded by an $183,000 grant from the UB Center for Advanced Biomedical and Bioengineering Technology (CAT), a program of the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR). Administered by the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach, CAT provides necessary gap funding to promote the development and commercialization of UB research.

UB has filed a provisional patent application on the screw pump.

With the rotating screw at its center, the SIAD ER N-T Pasteurizer continuously pumps fluid in and out in a manner that allows the high-energy lamp within the device to uniformly penetrate a liquid -- even dense liquids -- and increase a microorganism's exposure to the lamp, improving the killing efficiency of the SIAD process.

As the screw rotates, it draws and discharges liquid through the device in a continuous flow. This action -- based on the classical Archimedean-screw principle for transporting water -- obviates the need for an external pump to create liquid flow.

The entire device, the researchers say, can be contained within a 2-inch in diameter by 6-inch tube that can be fitted onto a faucet for home water filtration and purification. Larger models can be outfitted at the point where a liquid enters a facility, such as near a home's water meter, well pump, or the point of entry for the water line into a house, office, factory, business, hospital, school, or other buildings.

In lab tests performed at UB, the SIAD process within two to 30 minutes totally eradicated trillions of E. coli, salmonella and B. cereus (an anthrax surrogate) microorganisms contained in seven gallons of water, apple juice and orange juice, respectively, without altering the liquids' taste or nutritional components.

The SIAD process also totally eradicated within 30 minutes the toxic chemical phenol -- used in the manufacture of several consumer products -- in seven gallons of industrial wastewater.

In comparative tests, other purification processes took much longer to destroy the pathogens in the liquids, or were unable to do so because of the liquids' density.

The lab tests were performed by Homer Reynolds, a researcher in the Department of Oral Biology, UB School of Dental Medicine; Philip LoVerde, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and Peter Horvath, associate professor of nutrition and physiology in the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions.

"The tests confirm that this is absolutely the best system out there for decontamination of liquids," says Patra. "It kills microorganisms that the others don't kill and it kills them faster."

Computer-simulated tests of the SIAD method using the new screw pump design, conducted by Patra and mechanical-engineering graduate student S. Xie, demonstrated the potential of the invention to enhance SIAD's effectiveness and efficiency, creating new opportunities for its use.

As a filter and purifier for municipal water or bottled spring water, the device can destroy microorganisms untouched by standard chlorination or ordinary water filters, according to the researchers. It can, for example, destroy cryptosporidium, a harmful pathogen that is leeching into municipal water systems and into spring water, according to a recent Cornell University study.

The device has obvious applications in the war against terrorism as a safeguard for U.S. water supplies, the researchers say.

The U.S. military also can put the device to work to decontaminate drinking water in the field, and it can be very helpful in countries where water-related diseases are prevalent, according to the researchers.

The apple-cider industry can use the device as a pasteurizer to kill E. coli occurring in fresh pressed cider, the researchers say. The same can be done with freshly produced orange juice, where salmonella contamination is a danger. Unlike standard heat pasteurization, the SIAD device will kill harmful organisms without altering the taste or nutritional makeup of juices, as proven and documented in the microbiological and nutritional studies conducted by UB.

The UB CAT, one of 15 such centers across New York State, focuses on biomedical and bioengineering industry-university collaborative research projects that can lead to development of useful products with commercial potential for New York State companies, and supports the mission of STOR to commercialize the discoveries of UB for the public good. Since 2001, CAT has provided 22 such projects with more than $3 million in funding.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.

(Posted March 18, 2004)

UB Team Develops Simple, Yet Powerful Device that

Written by Ellen Goldbaum, UB Senior Science Editor

A team of University at Buffalo scientists and engineers has developed a device that in minutes, instead of months, could safely and inexpensively destroy airborne biological agents in buildings as large as the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., which was closed for several months after anthrax was detected there in October 2001.

The device, called the BioBlower(tm), has immediate homeland-security applications, with the potential to eradicate a wide range of biological pathogens, such as anthrax, smallpox, SARS, influenza, tuberculosis and other toxic airborne species.

It destroys pathogens by rapidly heating contaminated air and could be employed either as a portable air-purification unit for first responders at the site of a biological attack or installed as a permanent part of a building's air-handling system to be activated immediately as soon as biological toxins are detected.

UB has filed for a provisional patent on the Bioblower(tm) and is negotiating a licensing arrangement with B3, a Buffalo company that its developers have formed to commercialize it.

In addition to homeland-security applications, the BioBlower(tm) also could provide a continuous clean air supply in hospitals, as well as military command centers and other battlefield facilities.

"The BioBlower(tm) destroys airborne biological agents essentially by sterilizing the air," said Jim Garvey, Ph.D., professor of chemistry in the UB College of Arts and Sciences and a co-inventor of BioBlower(tm). The other co-inventors are John Lordi, Ph.D., research professor, James D. Felske, Ph.D., professor, and Joseph C. Mollendorf, Ph.D., professor, all in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Garvey noted that the invention represents a quantum leap ahead of the current conventional technology, HEPA (High-Efficiency Particulate Air) paper filters, which are used to trap large airborne spores and need to be changed frequently, stored carefully and subsequently destroyed.

"With our device, there are no filters to change and very minimal maintenance," said Garvey. "The BioBlower(tm) indiscriminately destroys all airborne biotoxins via the extreme heating of the gas."

In a series of recent tests performed by scientists in the UB Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the Calspan-UB Research Center (CUBRC), the BioBlower(tm) successfully destroyed more than 99.9 percent of aerosolized spores of a benign anthrax simulant, Bacillus globicii (Bg).

"Bg spores are considered the gold standard for biotesting," explained Garvey. "Now that we can completely eliminate these hardy bacteria, we can kill any and all airborne biological toxins."

To conduct the tests, Richard Karalus, Ph.D., director of microbiology for CUBRC and senior scientist in the UB Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and his colleagues devised techniques to inject an aerosol of the Bg spores into the BioBlower(tm) and recapture them on the exhaust side to see if they were still alive.

At temperatures of 50, 100 and 150 degrees Centigrade, most of the spores came through unscathed, Garvey said.

"But above 200 degrees, in just milliseconds of exposure to that heat, we killed 99.9 percent of them in a single pass," he said.

The BioBlower(tm) heats the contaminated air, Garvey explained, by mechanically compressing it as it is being blown rapidly through a mechanical rotary pump.

"This recompressive process uniformly increases the temperature of the entire volume of gas, almost instantaneously," he said, adding that the same type of compressive heating occurs when a tire gets hot as it is inflated with air.

"The dramatic effect we observed is due to chemical combustion; these spores simply get burned away to ash," he said.

The BioBlower(tm) is well-suited to applications in hospitals and other health-care settings, where airborne infections can be a leading cause of disease and even death.

"This technology continuously cycles the air," said Garvey, "making it ideal for use in isolation wards, because it will kill infectious agents in the air before they can be released outside of the isolated area."

The device also is applicable to battlefield operations, such as tents, command headquarters and enclosed armored vehicles, where a continuous supply of clean air is essential, he added.

According to its developers, the BioBlower(tm) is based on a modification of a Roots blower, a mechanical air-pump technology, which has been in existence for more than 100 years, and which has been used for a range of applications from vacuum pumps in research laboratories to superchargers for drag-racing "funny cars."

"It's a deceptively simple idea," said Lordi.

Roots blowers, he explained, consist of two rotating stainless steel cams that turn in opposite directions so that air is sucked in at one end and pushed out at the other end.

Lordi had been conducting research with Mollendorf and Felske on using a Roots-type mechanism to compressively heat gases.

The BioBlower(tm) is a modified Roots blower pump capable of extremely high gas-flow rates, up to hundreds of cubic feet per minute, Lordi explained.

"In the BioBlower(tm), the entire volume of air ingested by the rotary pump is rapidly compressed and heated to between 200 and 250 degrees Centigrade," he said. "Then it's expanded and cooled before being returned -- free of any biotoxins -- to the area being remediated."

The UB team is seeking government and private funding to further test the BioBlower on viruses and other bacteria and also to modify it for destruction of chemical agents as well.

Biotesting with Bg was funded by the University at Buffalo's Center for Advanced Technology, which promotes development and commercialization of UB research with the support of the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR).

The BioBlower(tm) is a direct result of collaborations between chemists in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, engineers in UB's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and microbiologists in the university's School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

(Posted February 27, 2004)

Seeking Participants for UB Technology Entrepreneur Competition

Written by Jacqueline Ghosen, UB School of Management Director of Communications

The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership in the University at Buffalo School of Management and the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach are seeking students and recent alumni to participate in the inaugural Technology Entrepreneur Competition.

UB students and recent alumni with innovative ideas in the areas of physical and life-science technologies, as well as those with innovative business concepts using proprietary technologies in other areas, such as service industries, are invited to participate.

The prize package of more than $50,000 includes $25,000 in seed funding, one year of office space and one year of accounting, marketing, advertising and legal services.

Interested students and alumni who have graduated within the past two years are encouraged to attend an open house from 4-5 p.m. on Feb. 11 in the Center for Tomorrow on the UB North (Amherst) Campus. The open house is designed allow students from different disciplines to meet and form their teams. Technical and scientific students are asked to come prepared with information regarding their commercially viable technology. Display materials may include posters, concept papers, prototypes, samples or other materials that demonstrate the technology. Teams should be comprised of individuals involved in the science of the innovation, as well as individuals with a business background. Register to attend the open house by sending an email to mgt-cel@buffalo.edu. Include names of all team members attending and indicate whether or not the team is looking for additional members.

Applications to participate in the competition are due on Feb. 27, and teams will be assigned mentors during the week of March 1. Each team will be required to submit a business plan by April 16. Judges will review the business plans and name up to five finalists on April 30. Each team in the finals will be required to give a presentation before a panel of judges on May 7. The winner will be announced that day, shortly after the final presentation.

Sponsoring the event are North Forest Development, LLC, Hahn & Associates, LLC, Jaeckle, Fleischmann & Mugel, LLP, Fiddler & Co., and Flynn & Friends.

Application materials and information about the competition can be accessed online at http://www.mgt.buffalo.edu/ced/cel/tec.shtm or by calling the UB Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at 645-3000.

(Posted February 6, 2004)

New Swimsuit Technology Developed at UB Introduced at World Cup Meet

Written by Lois Baker, UB Senior Health Sciences Editor

The difference between finishing first and coming in second in competitive swimming is measured in milliseconds, so when a swimmer's technique and fitness is as good as it gets, a coach turns to one remaining variable to sharpen the competitive edge -- the swimsuit.

In that scenario, scientists in the Center for Research and Education in Special Environments at the University at Buffalo (UB) may be a coach's best friends. They have a patent pending on a structural element that can improve a swimmer's time by decreasing the force water exerts on swimmers, called "drag," by 10 percent when incorporated into the swimsuit design.

The new element, which the researchers call a turbulator, alters the fluid dynamics of water as it flows over and around the swimmer. How drag acts on a body moving through water plays an important role in the amount of energy a competitor must exert to cover a specific distance: less drag, less energy required, quicker finish.

Trials of suits incorporating the turbulator into their fabric, conducted at UB over two years, showed that adding the element could improve a swimmer's time by 3 percent, said David Pendergast, Ed.D., UB professor of physiology and biophysics. Pendergast and Joseph Mollendorf, Ph.D., UB professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, were senior researchers on the project.

TYR, the company that has licensed the technology and named it "Aqua Shift(tm)," will introduce its new line of competition suits incorporating turbulators to the swimming world today (Jan. 30, 2004) at the FINA World Cup Swimming meet. The competition is being held at the Nassau (N.Y.) Aquatics Center.

The team of UB inventors who developed the technology will be at the launch of the new suit to discuss the underlying science and the performance trials conducted in the UB center's facilities.

The turbulator's science is grounded in the research team's earlier work in fluid dynamics and its success in decomposing drag, breaking it into its component forces. "No one else had done that before," Pendergast said.

"We discovered there are three types of drag. Friction drag, the force of water molecules as they pass over the body, is dependent on how long the body is. Pressure drag, the strongest force, results from pushing the water out of the way. Wave drag occurs at relatively high speeds and is the force exerted by waves created."

When the researchers broke drag into its three components, they found that pressure and friction drag exerted the highest influences, said Pendergast. Their next question was: How can drag be reduced?

Their first inclination was to change the surface of the swimsuit fabric, but that approach didn't reduce drag significantly. Enter the turbulator, a strategically placed fabric-encased flexible tube that introduces a raised ridge on the suit. Pendergast describes how this element improves the fluid dynamics of a swimmer.

"When water hits the shoulders of a swimmer, it separates from the body, which creates drag. By adding a turbulator, we cause water to follow the body instead of separating from it. This change increases friction drag, but reduces pressure drag. We found that placing a turbulator on the front and back of a suit significantly reduced pressure drag, overcoming the increased friction drag and adding a competitive advantage"

Meanwhile, TYR had approached Albert (Budd) Termin, II, UB's swimming coach, whose swimmers compete in the company's suits, about working on reducing drag. Termin has collaborated extensively with Pendergast and Mollendorf on improving swimming efficiency.

Over a two-year period, the team tested 20 suit models incorporating the turbulator for TYR at the Center for Research and Education in Special Environments. The trials took place in the center's special annular (doughnut-shaped) pool designed for conducting a variety of specialized research, including measuring drag and other hydrodynamic properties, and in UB's competition pool.

"The work was part theory and part practice," said Pendergast. "It turned out the size of the turbulator was crucial. We'd predict how a certain size and placement would respond, TYR would build the suit, and we tested and retested."

The final design incorporates a series of turbulators positioned on the suit front, across the shoulders and across the hips. (UB research on suit design had shown that suits that cover the swimmer from shoulder to knee or ankle produce less drag than suits with less coverage.)

Yana Klochkova, who won two gold medals for Ukraine in the 2000 Olympics and is sponsored by TYR, will model the new suit at the Jan. 30 unveiling.

(Posted January 30, 2004)

UB, Military Collaborate on Design and Testing of First Drug to Prevent Noise-Induced Hearing Loss

Written by Lois Baker, UB Senior Health Sciences Editor

Six hundred Marines at Camp Pendleton in California will undergo two weeks of war games in the coming months armed with a new weapon: a drug designed to protect their hearing from the destructive decibels of battle.

For the Marines, it's an opportunity to take part in the fight against noise-induced hearing loss in the military and in society in general.

For researchers at the University at Buffalo's Center for Hearing and Deafness, it's a chance to put to the ultimate test a drug they studied for more than eight years in the laboratory and tested successfully in animals.

The drug to be tested is N-acetylcystine, or NAC, an antioxidant compound approved by the FDA in a different form for loosening mucus in airways or breathing tubes and for treating liver damage from overuse of acetaminophen. Bringing it to the clinical trial stage for use against noise-induced hearing loss involved a series of studies begun in 1995 and a collaboration between UB scientists and military physicians.

Donald H. Henderson, Ph.D., professor of communicable disorders and sciences, and Bo Hua Hu, M.D., research scientist, both from the Center for Hearing and Deafness (CHD), did the basic research, while Richard Kopke, M.D., and Michael Hoeffer, M.D., physicians at the U.S. Naval Medical Center in San Diego, handled the clinical aspects. The patent, which is held by UB and the U.S. Navy, is the first on a drug to prevent noise-induced hearing loss.

Noise-induced hearing loss is one of the most common and devastating occupational injuries in industrialized societies, affecting about 10 million people in the U.S. alone. The villain is oxidative stress, damage caused by too many free oxygen molecules, or free radicals. These rogue molecules kill the delicate hair cells of the inner ear, which convert energy from sound waves into electrical impulses that carry audio stimuli to the brain's hearing center. As hair cells die, hearing diminishes.

Henderson began working with Kopke to investigate ways to make hair cells resistant to oxidative stress when Kopke was a fellow at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Earlier research conducted separately at the CHD and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm had shown that exposing animals to low levels of noise for one to 10 days made their ears significantly more resistant to damage from toxic noise: The low-level noise doses appeared to "inoculate" the animals against hearing loss.

Kopke and Henderson then set out to determine why the ear became more damage-resistant with so-called prophylactic exposure by studying the biochemical changes in the ear. They discovered, to their surprise, that repeated non-toxic noise exposure increased the levels of free-radical-destroying antioxidants in the inner ear in much the same way that inoculation with weakened disease-causing organisms primes the body's immune system to produce more disease-fighting cells.

The researchers next worked on producing the same protective effect pharmacologically. They applied several known antioxidant compounds directly to the animals' inner ears and exposed them to toxic continuous noise designed to mimic gunfire. As hoped, the antioxidant drugs kept inner-hair-cell damage to a minimum.

"Those experiments proved our point," said Henderson, "but the results weren't applicable clinically. You can't inject drugs into the inner ears of humans."

Would the drugs still protect the ear if taken internally, was the next question? To find out, Henderson and Hu injected the known antioxidant NAC, already approved for human use, into the study animals' abdomens, and performed the toxic noise test. The answer was "yes:" Delivering the drug systemically was very effective in preventing hearing loss.

Enter American Biohealth Group, LLC, which acquired the license to develop the drug into an easily useable form. That work made possible the upcoming clinical trial using dissolvable NAC. Marines will swallow a glass-full of a drink containing NAC at every meal during the war games. Their hearing tests will be compared with fellow Marines who didn't receive the drug. Results of the clinical trial are expected in Spring 2004. Henderson is a consultant on the clinical trial, headed by Kopke, and is involved in its planning.

Meanwhile, Henderson and center researchers are forging ahead with research on another class of compounds called SRC-inhibitors.

"NAC has promise," said Henderson, "but SRC-inhibitors are even more promising for noise-induced hearing loss. What is equally exciting, other drugs we are interested in may stop the progression of age-related hearing loss as well."

SRC-inhibitors play a direct role in preventing cell death. The center researchers are testing a specific SRC-inhibitor developed by David Hangauer, Ph.D., associate professor of medicinal chemistry in UB's College of Arts and Sciences, who is investigating the compound's potential as an anti-cancer drug. Henderson is collaborating on research into its possibilities for preventing hearing loss with Thomas Nicotera, M.D., research professor at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, who has expertise in the action of free radicals on cell death.

SRC-inhibitors block the early stages of one kind of cell death, which, if allowed to progress, releases an explosion of free radicals, Henderson noted. By preventing free-radical formation, this mode of action allows for a much smaller dose of the drug than is required with NAC, he said.

"To protect inner-ear hair cells through antioxidant activity, you need one molecule of antioxidant for every free-radical molecule, so if you have 50 million free radicals you need a substantial amount of the drug," he said. "To prevent formation of free radicals, you need about 1/500th of that amount.

"Learning how cells die in the inner ear has opened up new opportunities for prevention and treatment," Henderson said. "The three main causes of hearing loss -- noise, ototoxic drugs and aging -- appear to involve the common factor of oxidative stress, either through increased free radical formation or reduced antioxidant availability.

"Loss of hearing is the second most common health problem of the elderly," Henderson noted. "Previous studies of age-related hearing loss showed that treatment with antioxidants may prevent or decrease the deafness that often comes with increasing years. If our work at UB can help decrease hearing loss from both noise and aging, we will have made great strides toward our goal of defeating this disabling condition."

(Posted December 17, 2003)

From Lab Bench to Boardroom: UB Chemist's Powerful Approach to Anti-Cancer Compounds Makes the Leap

Written by Ellen Goldbaum, UB Senior Science Editor

In a classic example of scientific research that has successfully outgrown the university lab where it was born, a University at Buffalo professor's unique method for designing and synthesizing anti-cancer compounds, called protein kinase inhibitors, is being commercialized.

Kinex Pharmaceuticals, LLC, a UB faculty start-up company that has attracted the participation of some major players in the pharmaceutical industry, now has an exclusive option to license the professor's technology from the university and UB has filed two international patents on the new approach.

The technology is behind what may be the next generation of protein kinase inhibitors, a multi-billion-dollar market also being pursued vigorously by big pharma.

According to Kinex officials, the company expects to have compounds in human trials within two years.

"We are focusing our strategy on developing drugs that shrink tumors and prevent metastases with minimal or no side effects," said David Hangauer, Ph.D., associate professor of medicinal chemistry in the Department of Chemistry in UB's College of Arts and Sciences, who developed the technology and the resulting protein kinase inhibitors.

"For the broad range of cancers we are targeting, there are no good therapies out there with minimal side effects," he said.

The key advantage of the new protein kinase inhibitors that Kinex is developing is that because of the unique binding site against which these compounds are targeted, there is a greatly reduced chance that patients will develop resistance to these drugs -- a problem that already has rendered ineffective some of the first marketed protein kinase inhibitors.

"For a drug that patients will take for the rest of their lives, resistance is a huge issue," said Hangauer, who also is Kinex's vice president for research and development, "particularly because the cancer genome is unstable and it mutates very quickly."

The drugs that are developed using this approach also will be more selective than the currently marketed protein kinase inhibitors because Hangauer chose to pursue a binding site that is designed by nature to accept as substrates only proteins specific to this enzyme. Other companies are pursuing a site that binds ATP, a substrate that is ubiquitous for all 1,000 protein kinases in the body.

"Even if the enzyme mutates our binding site, thereby preventing the drug from binding there, its natural substrates also will not be able to bind there," explained Hangauer. "The result still will be cancer cells that cannot grow and spread to other parts of the body."

The prospect of being able to avoid the development of resistance is powerful testimony to the potential of this approach to obtaining protein kinase inhibitors as cancer drugs, according to Allen Barnett, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Kinex Pharmaceuticals, who was formerly vice president of technology acquisition and external collaborations of the Schering-Plough Research Institute.

"This is the way that people will be designing protein kinase inhibitors in the future, if we are successful," said Barnett, who was responsible for evaluating and developing several multi-billion dollar drugs, including Claritin, at Schering-Plough.

"David's work has reached the stage where the basic technology is in place and no new discoveries are needed," he said. "He has the target, he has the lead compounds, they work selectively, they don't hit other targets. The next step is to convert it into a real drug."

That involves improving potency, doing animal and pharmacokinetic studies and developing more compounds around the initial leads, activities that are not covered by research grants, Barnett explained, which is why the company now is approaching the investor community, both locally and nationally.

"Right now, I view this as a scale-up project," said Barnett.

Protein kinases are enzymes that catalyze important chemical reactions, called phosphorylation, in cells and some of them are critical for the survival of cancer cells but unnecessary for normal cells.

Right now, researchers throughout the pharmaceutical industry and academia are developing anti-cancer drugs against various protein kinases, and one of them, called Src, has emerged as one of the most promising.

While some major pharmaceutical companies are pursuing inhibitors of this enzyme, the approach Hangauer has taken to target Src demonstrates unique advantages.

"We used our proprietary process to target our drugs to a different binding site on this particular enzyme," he said. "We decided early on that going after this particular binding site would put us ahead of the game."

So far, that strategy has proven successful, with screening tests in tumor cells at the National Cancer Institute, as well as in the Roswell Park Cancer Institute laboratories of Ralph J. Bernacki, Ph.D., of the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Thomas Nicotera, Ph.D., of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biophysics, showing that Hangauer's compounds have activity against all of the major cancers, including those for which current drugs are not very effective, such as lung cancer, highly metastatic prostate cancer, colon cancer and ovarian cancer.

Hangauer's protein kinase inhibitors also are showing significant promise in preventing noise-induced hearing loss in collaborative research with Donald Henderson, Ph.D., professor in the UB Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences and director of UB's Center for Hearing and Deafness, and Nicotera, who is adjunct associate professor in the same department.

And while the resistance issue is probably Kinex's most powerful advantage over other protein kinase inhibitors for treating cancer, the high selectivity of its compounds, Hangauer said, also greatly reduces the severity of potential side effects.

In some cases, he noted, the effective dose could be as much as one hundred times less drug than the protein kinase inhibitors now on the market.

Barnett noted that the same basic approach Hangauer has used to develop the anti-cancer compounds also could be used to attack other enzymes in the same class and to target other diseases.

This new class of compounds has shown activity against enzymes involved in a broad range of other diseases and conditions, including Type II diabetes, autoimmune diseases, osteoporosis, stroke and psoriasis.

"To me, the decision about establishing a company is based on whether or not there is something lasting," Barnett said. "If there's just one deal or one product, then you don't need to develop a company; but if you're talking about something that potentially is useful for other types of drugs and classes of drugs and can lead to a pipeline of products, then that's the basis of a business, and that's what I see in Kinex."

In applying for the broadest possible patent protection on Kinex's technology and compounds, UB also has made a significant commitment to the company.

"Kinex has an excellent platform for development of a new class of drugs with great potential in cancer therapy and for other diseases," said Robert Genco, D.D.S., UB vice provost for the Office of Science, Technology and Economic Outreach and SUNY Distinguished Professor in the UB Department of Oral Biology. "The company has an excellent management team: company CEO Dr. Barnett is experienced in drug development and Dr. Hangauer is a committed and very talented scientist."

While it will be several years before Kinex is able to get a product to market, Genco added that the company has good intellectual property protection.

"The main elements for success are in place," he said.

In addition to Barnett, Johnson Y. N. Lau, M.D., formerly chairman and chief executive officer of Ribapharm, Inc., who took that company public in one of the largest biotech initial public offerings ever, is executive chairman of Kinex Pharmaceuticals.

Lyn Dyster, Ph.D., who successfully founded biotech firm GenCyte, is Kinex's vice president for operations and business development.

(Posted October 27, 2003)

UB and UR Technologies Being Licensed By Company for Product That Will Put Prescriptions on Digital Paper

Written by Ellen Goldbaum, UB Senior Science Editor

Illegible prescriptions scrawled on physicians' notepads could become a thing of the past, thanks to two complementary technologies developed at the University at Buffalo and the University of Rochester that together are being licensed by mobileLexis, a digital paper solutions company based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The company plans to use the technologies, which were marketed together through a new effort to commercialize research conducted at upstate New York institutions, to develop a secure, electronic prescription system using digital paper.

"Since we focus on the health-care, financial and government markets, we needed to have both a reliable and robust means of translating the handwritten information from paper to computer and a powerful and proprietary method of securing that information for Internet transfer," said Rod Sheets, president of mobileLexis.

"Accuscript and AuthentImage resolve both of these issues quite nicely and more than satisfy our data requirements," he said.

Digital paper, which has been in the marketplace a little over a year, functions the same as any other paper, but records, captures and sends text that users write by hand, using a specially designed, electronic pen.

Accuscript, the UB technology, allows for unmatched handwriting recognition on digital paper, while AuthentImage, the U of R technology, is a digital-authentication package that ensures both the security and integrity of documents on digital paper.

The two technologies together provide mobileLexis with critical features for its MDScript product, which will process prescriptions in real-time through the transmission of pen-stroke information to a computer or server. The Accuscript technology will translate the handwritten information into digital data and the AuthentImage technology then will secure it for transmission to the pharmacy or health-care insurance provider.

The two technologies also will be used for products mobileLexis is developing for other applications.

Accuscript is a software program ideally suited for instantly turning handwriting on digital paper into digital data, according to its principal UB developers, Venu Govindaraju, M.S. '88, Ph.D.'92, UB professor of computer science and engineering and associate director of UB's Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition (CEDAR), and Hanhong Xue, Ph.D. '02, now an employee of IBM.

"Some handwriting-recognition programs are designed to ignore the 'noise' that occurs when people write on paper, things like smudges or other marks that are not part of the letters themselves," explained Govindaraju.

"That feature, which is critical in hard-copy applications, will not result in optimal performance in a digital-paper application," he explained. "Accuscript, on the other hand, works best with the perfectly clean images that result when users write on digital paper."

The ability to ignore handwritten "noise," Govindaraju explained, is a function that must be built into a software package at its most fundamental level, so it is intrinsic to the way the package will function.

While most consumers are familiar with the use of the electronic pads they use to sign for packages or when they charge a purchase, Govindaraju said those gadgets only capture data, they do not contain any handwriting-recognition features.

"Most of these online devices are just for signatures and nobody ever will read or recognize them unless there's a question about one of them," he said. "But with digital paper applications, the bar is much higher. The software has to be application-specific, so that a basic lexicon, or vocabulary, can be constructed, which guides the software program in recognizing words correctly."

Govindaraju pointed out that while Accuscript's first application may be in the medical-information field, it can easily be customized to any application.

Work on customizing the UB research is being sponsored by mobileLexis.

AuthentImage is a new way to hide information within an ordinary digital image and to extract it again without distorting the original image or the data. The new technique will solve a dilemma faced by digital image users, particularly in sensitive military, legal and medical applications. Until now users have had to choose between an image that's been watermarked to establish its trustworthiness and one that isn't watermarked but preserves all the original information, allowing it to be enlarged or enhanced to show detail. When information is embedded using the new method, authorized users can do both.

"The technique will be widely applicable to situations requiring authentication of images with detection of changes, and it also can be used to encode information about the image itself, such as who took the picture, when or with what camera," said Murat Tekalp, Ph.D., professor of electrical engineering at the University of Rochester and co-creator of the technology.

"The greatest benefit is in determining if anyone has clandestinely altered an image. These days many commercial software systems can be used to manipulate digital images. By encoding data in this way we can be sure the image has not been tampered with, and then remove the data within it without harming the quality of the picture," he said.

Although the technique currently is implemented in software, it could be implemented in hardware or firmware -- software stored in read-only memory or programmable read-only memory -- in trusted devices where image integrity is critical to the application. For instance, the technique could be used in a trusted digital camera used to gather forensic evidence to be later used at a trial. If information is embedded in the images captured with the camera using the new algorithms, any subsequent manipulations of the pictures could be detected and the area where they occurred pinpointed.

AuthentImage was licensed to mobileLexis in July, and UB is in the process of finalizing the license of Accuscript to mobileLexis.

UB's CEDAR is the largest research center in the world devoted to developing new technologies that can recognize and read handwriting. Over the past decade, CEDAR has worked with the U.S. Postal Service developing and refining handwriting recognition software for postal applications.

(Posted October 21, 2003)

UNYTECH03 Venture Forum to Highlight University at Buffalo Spin-Offs

The University at Buffalo has joined together with colleges and universities from throughout Upstate New York to host UNYTECH03, the first venture forum designed to connect investors with technology-intensive companies spun-off exclusively from universities located Upstate. The event will be held October 20, 2003 at the Canandaigua Inn on the Lake in Canandaigua, New York.

“This is a very unique collaboration, as both public and private institutions from Upstate have come together to showcase the great technologies being developed by our faculties, researchers and students,” Robert Genco, UNYTECH03 planning chairman and University at Buffalo Vice Provost, said. “Commercialization of research conducted within our universities is a key factor in revitalizing Upstate’s economy as we enter the 21st century.”

In addition to the company presentations, the event is highlighted by keynote speaker New York State Assemblyman William Magnarelli.

UNYTECH03 is designed to give venture capitalists, seed and angel investors access and insight into technologies and companies being developed on the campuses of Upstate New York. The presenting companies have been pre-screened and selected to present based on their market opportunity, development stage and intellectual property protection. Disciplines being presented include drug discovery, imaging, biotechnology, materials, information technology and more. The event planning committee is primarily made up of representatives from university technology transfer office and venture capital firms.

“The universities participating in UNYTECH03 combined for almost $1 billion in total research and development expenditures in 2001,” said Assemblyman Magnarelli, Chair on the Taskforce on Industry-University Cooperation. “This level of academic research funding is not unlike some of the most respected innovation hubs in the United States, including the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina or Philadelphia.”

Featured companies from the University at Buffalo include:

MobileLexis, Inc., which develops applications and services that utilize Anoto functionality to capture and transmit information written by pen on paper directly to digital media;

Virmatics, LLC, which develops automated and intelligent bioinformatic software tools to expedite R&D initiatives in molecular biology and genetic engineering; and

ONY, Inc., a company that manufactures Infasurf (calfactant), a prescription pharmaceutical drug that is approved for use to prevent and treat respiratory failure in newborn infants.

Participating schools include Alfred University, Binghamton University, Cornell University, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Rochester Institute of Technology, Syracuse University, State University of New York, University at Buffalo and the University of Rochester.

(Posted October 20, 2003)

Maggard Named Associate Director of STOR

W.W. "Woody" Maggard, president of Reichenbach Technologies, has been appointed associate director for the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR).

Maggard's responsibilities will include conducting an incubator/research park feasibility study for the university, and developing a program of services to assist business start-ups that are part of the UB Technology Incubator program.

Maggard comes to UB with a distinguished career in developing and operating world-class, university-related research parks and technology incubators, including Delaware Technology Park in Newark, Arizona Technology Incubator in Scottsdale and Central Florida Research Park in Orlando, among others. As an entrepreneur, he has co-founded and managed several business ventures, including NETeXc Information Services, Inc., LearnDaily.com and Southern Global Companies.

"Woody's experience is key to our plans to facilitate economic development in Buffalo," said UB Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi. "UB needs to evaluate how we can make our current incubator succeed and determine what needs there are for additional incubators or research parks in Buffalo. Woody will lead these efforts for UB in addition to aiding our technology transfer operation in general."

Robert J. Genco, D.D.S., Ph.D., UB vice provost and director of STOR, added: "Woody has experience not only in developing and managing successful incubators, but also in technology transfer, entrepreneurship and venture capital.

"His wealth of knowledge in these fields will strengthen the current services STOR provides as it commercializes discoveries coming out of the research endeavors of UB and its affiliated institutions."

Genco noted that Maggard has "been successful in securing funding and providing strategic development for entrepreneurial bio and technology start-up companies as part of the number of research parks he has managed. Together with economic development agencies, state and local government, and the investment community, Woody will work on establishing clusters of start-up businesses based on UB-developed technologies."

In addition, to his considerable experience assisting small bio and technology companies, Maggard has been involved deeply in the venture capital community. While at Delaware Technology Park, he co-founded and directed Delaware Innovation Fund, a $15 million private venture fund focused on high technology businesses, and also co-founded the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds, a national private-public association serving pre-seed, early seed and seed stage companies.

"I was particularly impressed with Woody's experience in the formation of seed capital for high technology start-ups," said Angelo M. Fatta, Ph.D., president of BuffLink. "I believe that Woody will be able to 'hit the ground running.' He has a firm understanding of the university-community interface."

Fatta noted that Maggard will be a strong asset in helping to advance the Buffalo Niagara Life Sciences Initiative coordinated by BuffLink.

Maggard is a current or past member of professional organizations including the Licensing Executives Society; Association of University Technology Managers; Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering; Association of University Related Research Parks, of which he is a former board member; National Business Incubation Association; American Economic Development Council, and Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

He has taught several courses on business management, research-park development and property management, and is a frequent contributor to articles in books and journals. Maggard earned a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University and an M.P.A. from the Consortium of the California State Universities and Colleges.

(Posted August 21, 2003)

UB Scientists Patent Novel Inhibitor of Poxvirus Replication

Written by Lois Baker, UB Senior Health Sciences Editor

Molecular biologists at the University at Buffalo have discovered a novel way to inhibit the replication of poxviruses, the group that includes smallpox virus, by interfering with messenger RNA synthesis necessary for the viruses to reproduce in a host organism.

The discovery, which has a patent pending, could lead to drugs that could be available to treat the potentially deadly disease if there were a bioterrorism-related outbreak.

Such drugs also would be effective against related poxviruses such as monkeypox, which recently has infected dozens in the U.S who came in contact with animals imported from Africa, where monkeypox is indigenous.

"Any success that results in a treatment is a success for everyone," said Edward Niles, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and biochemistry in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and primary discoverer of the new antireplication mechanism. "We need something."

Niles noted that work that would lead to new drugs is in the early stages.

There is no effective treatment for smallpox or other poxviruses. Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1977 after a worldwide vaccination campaign. The U.S. and Russia maintain the only authorized repositories of the virus, but virologists acknowledge that the virus may exist outside these sites.

Existing vaccines, which could be used to protect against smallpox bioterrorism, have a high incidence of side effects and may not be administered to certain segments of the population, notably pregnant women, persons with compromised immune systems due to disease or medications, persons with a history of eczema and children under one year of age.

Drugs developed using this novel approach could be stockpiled for use if an outbreak occurs, said Niles. If a new smallpox vaccination campaign were undertaken, such drugs also could be available to treat persons who have serious reactions to the vaccine.

Niles' discovery, achieved working with vaccinia virus, exploits a peculiar aspect of poxvirus biochemistry: Instead of creating copies of itself in the nucleus of the infected cell, as with other DNA viruses such as the herpes virus, poxviruses replicate in the cell's cytoplasm, the gel-like material surrounding the nucleus.

"Since poxviruses replicate in the cytoplasm, they can't use hosts enzymes present in the nucleus to make their proteins," said Niles. "These viruses have evolved in a manner that allows them to produce their own enzymes to express their genes and permit their replication."

"This quirk in the poxvirus replication process should make it possible for scientists to design drugs targeted to those unique viral enzymes without interrupting normal cellular functions," he said.

Vaccinia virus is the virus strain used for immunization against smallpox. The initial interest of Niles and colleagues was to understand the basic process in the early stage of poxvirus gene expression (virus gene expression takes place in three stages: early, intermediate anda late).

"The early phase is unique in that for transcription (mRNA synthesis) to proceed, it requires an initiating event at a site on the DNA called a promoter," he said. "Another signal, called a terminator, is required to stop the early gene transcription. We wanted to know what that terminator signal does."

To study this mechanism, the UB researchers synthesized a short RNA fragment, or oligonucleotide, that contained the known termination signal. They then added the fragment to a test tube transcription reaction, and measured RNA synthesis.

"We expected the oligonucleotide to inhibit the termination reaction," said Niles, "but instead of stopping it, the presence of the oligonucleotide stimulated premature termination. This resulted in the synthesis of truncated RNA molecules, which would be unable to direct the synthesis of normal proteins.

"This termination mechanism is unique to poxviruses, and this method of inhibition of gene expression should work on all poxviruses," he said. "If this oligonucleotide could be delivered as a drug, it would inhibit synthesis of all poxvirus proteins early in infection and stop the virus from replicating in the host."

The work is in its very early stages, Niles noted, with many steps that must be accomplished before a viable drug can be developed.

"We have to identify the most active compounds in vitro, test their activities on virus replication in tissue culture, and then figure out how best to deliver it in an animal model before we can even begin to test it in humans."

Mohamed Ragaa Mohamed, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow working in Niles' laboratory, collaborated on the research.

The work was funded by the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health.

(Posted June 17, 2003)

24 Faculty Members Named on Patents

UB patents represent more than one-third of those awarded to SUNY institutions

Twenty-four UB faculty members were named on 19 patents awarded to the SUNY Research Foundation in 2002.

UB's patents represents more than one-third of the 55 total patents awarded to all SUNY campuses in 2002. SUNY is eighth on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's most recent ranking of U.S. universities.

Robert J. Genco, vice provost and director of the university's Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR), said the office is seeing an increase in numbers of invention disclosures being submitted by faculty, and expects to file patent applications on a majority of those disclosures.

"One of the main goals of STOR is to commercialize discoveries of UB faculty for the public good," Genco added. "Protecting intellectual property rights is essential in the commercialization process. Seeking patent protection for discoveries in the early stage of development is critical during the marketing and eventual license of many technologies."

Through its three divisions—Intellectual Property, Research Funding and Commercialization—STOR works to identify, protect and commercialize discoveries of UB faculty and staff. Genco noted that UB's intellectual property portfolio includes more than 200 technologies in the life and physical sciences.

STOR will honor the UB faculty members named on patents awarded in 2002 at a reception from 4-6 p.m. June 11 in the Center for Tomorrow, North Campus. They are:

Wayne A. Anderson, Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and collaborator Lin Huang Chang, for patent 6,340,621 Thin Film Capacitor and Method of Manufacture. This invention is for a thin film capacitor with small circuits and low operating power that has applications in computer and electronics industries.
Robert M. Straubinger and S.V. Balasubramanian, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, for patent 6,348,215 Stabilization of Taxane-Containing Dispersed Systems. This invention is a method of stabilizing taxol liposomes. Taxol is a frequently used anti-cancer drug that can cause significant side effects. Stabilized liposome formulations of taxol have been shown to reduce toxic effects of current taxol treatments. Straubinger and Balasubramanian were recognized for their research at the 28th Annual Western New York Inventor of the Year Awards Banquet, placing third in the Life Sciences division.
A. Joshua Wand, Mark R. Ehrhardt and Jeffrey L. Urbauer, all formerly of the Department of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences, for patent 6,362,624 Apparatus & Method for High Pressure NMR Spectroscopy. This invention consists of a high-pressure cell that allows state-of-the-art NMR spectroscopy to be performed on proteins with added safety and better accuracy.
Eli Ruckenstein, Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Hongmin Zhang, formerly of the Department of Chemical Engineering, for patent 6,384,146 Graft, Graft-Block, Block-Graft and Star-Shaped Co-polymers and Methods of Making Them, which involves new methods for the creation of different kinds of polymers.
Linda B. Ludwig and Julian L. Ambrus, Jr., both of the Department of Medicine, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and Kristie Anne Krawczyk, formerly of the Department of Medicine, for patent 6,392,029 HIV Chemokines. This patent has applications in HIV vaccine development.
Paras N. Prasad, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences; Ping Chin Cheng, Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; and Jayant D. Bhawalker, formerly of the Department of Chemistry, and former graduate student Shan Jen Pan, for patent 6,402,037 Two-Photon Upconverting Dyes and Applications. The research team demonstrated organic materials capable of efficiently absorbing two photons of light that can be used in high-density data storage and photodynamic cancer therapy.
Robert A. Coburn, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, and Richard T. Evans and Robert J. Genco, Department of Oral Biology, School of Dental Medicine, for patent 6,407,288 Naphthylsalicylanilides as Antimicrobial and Anti-Inflammatory Agents. This invention, a compound similar to aspirin, has applications as a new anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory drug product for the treatment of oral, gastrointestinal and skin diseases, and has been licensed to Therex, LLC, of Williamsville.
Thomas A. Russo and Ulrike Carlino, both of the Department of Medicine, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, for patent 6,410,703 Identification of a Vaccine Candidate from an Extraintestinal Isolate of E. Coli, which can be used as an immunogen in vaccine formulations against E. coli found outside the intestines. Typical extraintestinal E. coli infections include urinary tract, meningitis and pneumonia.
Huw M.L. Davies, Department of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences, for patent 6,410,746 Metal Catalysts and Methods for Making and Using Same. This invention has potential applications in the pharmaceutical industry for short asymmetrical synthesis of compounds, such as methylphenidate, used in the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Surajit Sen, Department of Physics, College of Arts and Sciences, and Michael J. Naughton, formerly of the Department of Physics, for patent 6,418,081 System for Detection of Buried Objects, which uses acoustic energy and acoustic sensors (specialized micro-electromechanical sensors) to identify metallic and non-metallic objects buried in the ground such as landmines.
Donald D. Hickey, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, for patent 6,432,059 Method and Apparatus for More Precisely Determining Mean Left Atrial Pressure. This patent is the 11th awarded to Hickey for the Hickey Cardiac Monitoring System, which uses a balloon catheter inserted into the esophagus, adjacent to the aortic arch, to sense aortic pressure and provide real-time cardiac performance monitoring.
Linda M. Hall, Celian Ren and Wei Zheng, all formerly of the Department of Biochemical Pharmaceuticals, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and collaborator Manuel Marcel Paul Dubald, for patent 6,436,627 Gene Encoding an Invertebrate Alpha.1 Calcium Channel Subunit. The research team invented a method to isolate and characterize an invertebrate calcium channel subunit gene used to design insect-specific pesticides.
Michael C. Constantinou, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, for patent 6,438,905 Highly Effective Seismic Energy Dissipation Device. Constantinou developed a new energy dissipation technology that uses an unusual configuration, called Scissor-Jack Energy Dissipation System, that dissipates much of the earthquake-induced energy when installed in structural systems.
Peter F. Scott and Ramalingam Sridhar, both of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and College of Arts and Sciences, and former doctoral candidate Xia Shu and collaborator Cesar Bandera, for patent 6,455,831 CMOS Foveal Image Sensor Chip. Used in foveal vision systems, this invention allows automatic target recognition systems and robots to see the same way as humans.
Michael R. Detty, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences and former graduate student Peter R. Virkler, for patent 6,458,967 Method for Preparation of an Intermediate Dye Product. This invention is an intermediate compound for a laser dye useful as a heat-generating element for applications such as thermal imaging, lithography or optical recording imaging.
Wesley L. Hicks, Jr., Department of Otolaryngology, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, for patent 6,465,205 In Vitro Cell Culture Device Including Cartilage and Methods of Using the Same. This invention has applications in creating wound-healing membranes that mimic the trachea inner wall.
Murali Ramanathan and Marilyn E. Morris, both of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, for patent 6,468,757 Method for Determining Drug-Serum Protein Binding. This invention is a method for screening for drug binding to serum protein. The binding of drugs to serum proteins can alter the disposition of the drug and reduce the availability of the drug at the site of desired action. The proposed method uses optical techniques that rapidly measure drug binding and eliminates the need for size-selective membranes and for drug analysis.
A. Joshua Wand, Mark R. Ehrhardt and Peter F. Flynn, all formerly of the Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, for patent 6,486,672 High Resolution NMR Spectroscopy of Molecules Encapsulated in Low-Viscosity Fluids. This invention has applications in determining the structure and dynamics of large proteins assisting in the analysis of the genome sequence, and has been licensed to Varian, of Palo Alto, Calif.
Frank V. Bright, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, and former students Brett R. Wenner, Meagan A. Doody and Gary A. Baker, for patent 6,492,182 Microsensor Arrays and Method of Using Same for Detecting Analytes. This is the third patent issued for a small, fast and portable sensor array that simultaneously detects more than 100 analytes in a single sample.

(Posted May 1, 2003)

ECIDA Names Exec to Help Entrepreneurs

Announcement from Erie County Industrial Development Agency

Mr. Alan Olhoeft has been appointed Director of the Entrepreneurial Services Network and brings extensive experience in the computer and medical technology fields to the position. According to Mr. Olhoeft:
“We have a good foundation in Western New York to foster the growth of start up and early stage companies. We have excellent educational and research institutions that are conducting leading edge discovery. We have a growing infrastructure of professional services for the entrepreneur. And we have a pool of non-profit and for-profit funding sources. We now need to leverage these resources by efficiently and energetically channeling support to the entrepreneur.”

The Entrepreneurial Services Network (ESN) links technology and life science entrepreneurs with the financial, professional, technical and business development resources they need to create innovative, high growth companies in Western New York. The ESN, in its formative stage, is hosted by the ECIDA, and supported by a coalition of for-profit and not-for profit organizations representing industry associations, investors, professional service providers, economic development agencies and local educational and research institutions.

New business opportunities are being created by the accelerating pace of discovery, particularly in the life science and technology fields. The changing Western New York economy has the potential to grow as a result of these new opportunities by fostering the growth of startup and early stage companies. Supporting these young companies is the focus of the ESN.

ESN Coalition members currently provide services to entrepreneurs, however, finding the specific resources needed is often time consuming and confusing. The goal of the ESN is to be a single point of contact for Western New York entrepreneurs, to provide coaching and assistance in a timely and efficient manner, and to help locate the financial support and services needed to achieve business success.

Mr. Olhoeft has been in senior management positions for over 20 years. He previously served as Executive Vice President at Mennen Medical, a local medical instrumentation company, Group Vice President at Siemens Electro-medical Systems in Danvers, Massachusetts, a medical technology business of Siemens AG and President, of the Critical Care Division of Baxter International in Irvine, California. Mr. Olhoeft has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Ohio State University and a Masters of Business Administration from Medaille College.

(Posted March 14, 2003)

Incubator Company Receives Funding

Microlanguage Closes its Series A Round of Financing
Equity Commitment from the Lead Investor Caps the Round

Microlanguage™, a provider of intelligent language processing solutions, today announced it has closed its Series A financing round, having received investor commitments totaling $1.0 million in equity. While Microlanguage has received a substantial amount of the funding, the balance is contingent upon meeting certain milestones. The round was lead by Spaulding Ventures, an early and interim-stage equity fund, and supported by several angel investors.

To read the full press release, visit http://www.microlanguage.com/news_03_03_06.html

(Posted March 13, 2003)

SIFT to Award $20,000 to UB Students

Budding UB Student Innovators Compete for $20,000
Click here to download the application package.

The University at Buffalo Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach is accepting applications for the Upstate Alliance for Innovation’s Student Innovation Fund for Technologies (SIFT) program, which awards up to $20,000 to assist UB students in commercializing their inventions.

Students who have made an invention or discovery under the supervision of a faculty advisor that might have commercial potential are encouraged to apply. Applicants must demonstrate their invention’s technical innovation, patentability and commercial potential. SIFT covers commercialization expenses such as testing, validation, software development, prototype development, patenting, or research and development related activities.

This program was created to encourage students’ scientific discovery, and engage them in the process of protecting and commercializing their intellectual property.

The deadline for submissions is May 30, 2003. Students may apply individually or as a team of up to four members.

Download the SIFT application package, For questions concerning the program contact Lorraine at 716-636-2568 x22.

Funded in part by the National Science Foundation, The Upstate Alliance for Innovation is a collaboration of the University at Buffalo, University of Rochester, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the cities of Buffalo and Rochester.

(Posted February 25, 2003)

UB CAT Awards $2 Million

The University at Buffalo Center for Advanced Technology (CAT) is awarding $2 million in funding to support 11 industry-university collaborative projects ranging from the development of a diagnostic medical device to a bioinformatics tool for virtual cloning.

"This round of funding is significantly larger than what was awarded in the previous round," said Robert J. Genco, D.D.S., Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Professor and UB Vice Provost for Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR). "Not only are we seeing an increase in the number of applications, but also in the quality of projects proposed. This is a validation for UB and the life-sciences community of Buffalo-Niagara."

The UB CAT is one of 15 centers across the state supported by the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research. It functions as the science accelerator arm of the Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR), which administers the program at UB.

The ultimate goal of CAT, Genco said, is to leverage university research into economic gains and new jobs for the region, with an emphasis on a field in which Buffalo-Niagara has traditionally excelled: biomedical and bioengineering research.

Over the past two years CAT has awarded nearly $3 million for 14 collaborative projects. These projects, which are close to commercialization, help existing or start-up businesses to expand through the development of new or improved product lines. According to Genco, each project is a collaborative effort between university researchers and their counterparts in business.

"CAT has been instrumental in providing the much needed gap funding," noted William Mihalko, M.D., Ph.D., and CAT executive director. "This type of funding supports researchers in further developing their laboratory work and in providing targeted products for industry partners."

Awards, which range up to $200,000, are presented in two categories: Discovery awards, for projects in the research stage, with funding typically used to advance ideas into development and prototyping, and Science Transfer awards used in transferring or commercializing late-stage development projects.

Recipients of the 2002 Discovery awards are:

o "PPOSAILS Based Clinical Diagnostic Medical Device." Frank V. Bright, Ph.D., UB Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, and industry partner OmniPharm Research International, Inc., of Buffalo.

o "Antigen Coupling to Dendritic Cells Enhances Vaccine Efficacy." Richard Bankert, V.M.D., Ph.D., UB professor of microbiology, and industry partner T & B Bioclone, Inc., of Eden.

o "Novel Identification Method for Therapy Response Markers." Elizabeth Repasky, Ph.D., Department of Immunology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, and industry partners Corixa Corporation of California and Virmatics LLC of Buffalo.

o "Neurosurgical Image Enhancement System." Robert Fenstermaker, M.D., UB associate professor of neurosurgery, and industry partner Technology Commercialization Technology Group of Long Island.

o "Development of a Data Glove for Medical Applications." T. Kesavadas, Ph.D., UB assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and industry partner Tactus Technologies, Inc. of Buffalo.

Recipients of the 2002 Science Transfer awards are:

o "Capture, Isolation and Identification of Biological Agents." Anthony Campagnari, Ph.D., UB professor of microbiology and medicine, and industry partners UB Calspan Research Center of Buffalo and HandyLab, Inc., of Michigan and Buffalo.

o "Durable Emitters for Nanospray Mass Spectrometery." Troy Wood, Ph.D., UB associate professor of chemistry, and industry partner Nanogenesys, Inc., of Kenmore.

o "Diagnostic for Monitoring Multiple Sclerosis Therapy." Murali Ramanathan, Ph.D., UB associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences, and industry partner Biogen, Inc., of Massachusetts.

o "Compact Infrared Illumination Flow Cyometer for Enhanced Sensitivity." Paras Prasad, Ph.D., executive director of the UB Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics and SUNY Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, and Stewart Carleton, Ph.D., Roswell Park Cancer Institute and director of the Flow Cytometry Laboratory, and industry partner Laser Photonics Technology, Inc., of Amherst.

o "Development of Bioinformatics Tools for Virtual Cloning." Yangzhou Wang, Ph.D., UB assistant professor of structural biology, and industry partner Virmatics, LLC of Buffalo.

o "Synergistic Inactivation and Disinfection Process and Device for Non-Thermal Pasteurization." Albani Patra, Ph.D., UB associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and industry partners Synergena, Inc., of East Aurora, and ZeptoMetrix Corp. of Buffalo.

To learn more about UB CAT and the application process, contact Mihalko at 716-829-2982 or email mihalk@buffalo.edu. Log onto http://www.stor.buffalo.edu to download a copy of the application.

(Posted February 11, 2003)

AMBP Tech Corp. Receives $1.1 Million Grant

AMBP Tech Corp., a University at Buffalo spin-off company, has received a $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency.

James Garvey, Ph.D., AMBP Tech founder and UB professor of chemistry, said the grant will allow the company to develop further and commercialize its advanced molecular beam disposition equipment for use in the microelectronics, optoelectronics and coatings industries.

AMBP Tech plans to develop a prototype of its new pulse arc molecular-beam deposition (PAMBD) unit under the two-year grant. AMBP's technique pulses pressurized gases through a plasma arc to create and deposit metal oxide thin films on substrates.

Garvey said that the development of thin films that do not damage sensitive substrates, such as silicon, during chip fabrication has been one of the greatest challenges of the electronics industry. High chip failure rates, he added, can be extremely costly for research-grade supercomputer chip fabricators.

As a UB spin-off company, AMBP Tech has taken advantage of programs made available by the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR).

Working on behalf of STOR, The InVentures Group has provided business-counseling services. The company also is speaking with a local venture capital group to secure additional funding, and plans to work with the Western New York Technology Development Center to develop a marketing and business strategy.

This is the second grant awarded to AMBP Tech in the past two years. AMBP Tech, founded in 1997, was awarded a grant under the federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program in 2000. This grant allowed the company to develop its laser-assisted molecular beam deposition (LAMBD) unit and enabled the company's move into the UB Technology Incubator located in Amherst.

According to Garvey, the idea behind PAMBD is similar in principal to LAMBD. While LAMBD uses a laser to rapidly heat a metal target creating high temperature plasmas, PAMBP uses an electrical discharge between two metal target rods to create the plasma. He explained that a pulse of reagent gas is injected into the plasma causing a unique chemical reaction. With each pulse, the resulting product, or film, is uniformly deposited onto a substrate with 100 percent efficiency.

By adjusting the pulse power and expansion conditions, Garvey added, the amount of material deposited by each pulse can be varied. Likewise, regulating the total number of pulses used in the deposition process allows precise control of film thickness. Varying the metal rods and reagent gases can develop a variety of complex film or alloys.

AMBP Tech plans to have a PAMBD prototype developed by the end of 2003 and begin marketing the tool the following year. More information on AMBP Tech can be found at http://www. ambptech.com.

(Posted November 27, 2002)

Therex LLC, Formed by UB Inventors

The University at Buffalo Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach has licensed to Therex LLC, a company formed by three UB faculty members, patents and technologies based on their prior research with salicylanilide chemical compounds.

Further research with the compounds as a potential active ingredient in personal-care, pharmaceutical and animal-care products through Therex LLC may lead to new anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial drug products for the treatment of oral, gastrointestinal and skin diseases.

“The primary goal of Therex LLC is to co-develop, with large pharmaceutical companies, new generations of similar drugs targeted to infections and inflammatory diseases that affect mucous membranes and skin,” said Joseph Dunn, Ph.D., managing partner of Therex LLC.

Therex LLC recently entered into a strategic alliance with a major pharmaceutical company to develop drugs based on its two most recent generations of salicylanilide compounds. Partnering with a major company is critical for a small biopharmaceutical company like Therex LLC. New drug applications can take anywhere $25 to $400 million in funding over the course of several years before any revenue is recognized.

Robert Coburn, Ph.D., professor in the UB Department of Chemistry, Richard Evans, Ph.D., professor in the UB Department of Oral Biology, and Robert Genco, D.D.S., UB vice provost and SUNY Distinguished Professor in the UB Department of Oral Biology, are the inventors of the compounds and cofounders of Therex LLC, a spin-off of Therex Technologies, Inc.

Kenneth Walters, Ph.D. and Dunn, Therex Technologies co-principals and current Therex LLC managing partners, in 1996 licensed from UB the 5-alkylsulfonylsalicylanilide chemical compounds developed by Coburn, Evans and Genco.

From the initial license to Therex Technologies, and through to the formation of Therex LLC, Coburn, Evans, and Genco have been actively researching salicylanilides. In June, UB was issued U.S. patent 6,407,288, “Naphthylsalicylanilides as Anti-Microbial and Anti-Inflammatory Agents.” In the same class of compounds as aspirin, naphthylsalicylanilides are a new class of salicylanilides and exhibit high potency of antibacterial activity against oral, gastrointestinal and skin diseases. Foreign patents are pending.

Therex LLC now holds all previous license agreements between Therex Technologies and UB pertaining to salicylanilides compounds, including the recently issued patent. Dunn said Therex has received more than $2 million in grants and private funding for the development of its core drug TrifluorosalÔ, which is based on the compounds licensed from UB. It plans to begin phase I and phase II clinical trials of TrifluorosalÔ for use against acne.

The technologies developed by Coburn, Evans and Genco were patented and licensed by the Intellectual Property Division of the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR). STOR is UB’s primary technology-transfer and commercialization office, supporting product and business development from the laboratory to the marketplace through its Intellectual Property, Research Funding and Commercialization divisions.

(Posted September 3, 2002)

UB Inventors Awarded Patents

Eight University at Buffalo faculty and researchers were named on three patents issued to the Research Foundation of the State of New York during June 2002. The UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR), applies for patents to protect intellectual property and works to commercialize these technologies.

The patents issued in June include:

6,410,703 - Identification Of A Vaccine Candidate From An Extra Intestinal Isolate Of E. Coli
Inventors: Drs. Thomas A. Russo and Ulrike Carlino, Department of Medicine, University at Buffalo
Summary: SUNY scientists identified a gene found in Escherichia coli (E. coli). Studies show this gene can be used as an immunogen in vaccine formulations against E. coli found outside the intestines, which are responsible for the majority of urinary tract infections and cause considerable sickness and death.

6,407,288 - Naphthylsalicylanilides As Antimicrobial and Anti-Inflammatory Agents
Inventors: Dr. Robert A. Coburn; Department of Chemistry, University at Buffalo, and Drs. Richard T. Evans and Robert J. Genco, Department of Oral Biology, University at Buffalo
Summary: SUNY scientists have identified novel chemical compounds that can act as antimicrobial agents against a wide variety of bacteria, an anti-inflammatory for obtaining relief from infections associated with the bacteria, and a method for the control of periodontal disease.

6,402,037 - Two-Photon Upconverting Dyes And Applications
Inventors: Drs. Paras N. Prasad; and Jayant D. Bhawalker; Department of Chemistry, University at Buffalo; Ping Chin Cheng; Department of Electrical Engineering, University at Buffalo; and Shan Jen Pan, formerly of UB.
Summary: SUNY research team demonstrated organic materials capable of efficiently absorbing two photons of light at the same time and their applications, especially in high-density data storage and photodynamic therapy of cancers deeper in tissues, which will minimize damage to adjacent normal tissues.

(Posted July 25, 2002)

STOR Brings Companies, Venture Capital to WNY

Buffalo-Niagara is on the verge of a new economy based in the biosciences and information technology, and the University at Buffalo Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR) is capitalizing on the strengths of the region and university to bring new companies and venture money to Western New York.

Recent activities of STOR have led to HandyLab, Inc., a microfluidics company based in Michigan, opening a research facility on UB’s South (Main Street) Campus.

HandyLab is the first use of the venture capital committed by HP as part of the Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics announced by Governor Pataki. HP committed a total of $10 million in venture capital to support economic development in Western New York, and $500,000 was given to HandyLab to help attract them here.

UB highlighted these recent successes at a reception today in UB’s Jacobs Executive Development Center, 672 Delaware Ave.

“STOR plays a pivotal role in UB’s research and service missions,” said UB President William R. Greiner. “It is the major point of connection between the intellectual capital and high-end technological resources of the university and the 21st century global marketplace.

“As our collaboration with HandyLab demonstrates, STOR promotes partnerships that will both serve the future of scientific discovery and help to fuel the economic revitalization of the region and state,” Greiner added.

UB Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi noted: “These successes are only the beginning of our efforts to commercialize our science and technology in Western New York. We are grateful to Governor Pataki for his initiation of the Center of Excellence, which led to our partnership with HP that made these re-locations possible.”

Robert J. Genco, D.D.S., Ph.D., UB vice provost and SUNY Distinguished Professor who is director of STOR, said its goal is “to commercialize the technologies that will emerge from the collaborative project involving HandyLab, and other partners.

“Each company,” he added, “represents a unique technology that complements the research and development activities of our region and university.”

Genco said UB has received queries from several venture-capital groups, including Rand Capital, Strategic Investments and Holdings and HP, interested in supporting commercialization efforts coming out of the bioinformatics field. “If there is a good match between the start-up and the fund, STOR will work with the entrepreneur to build a strong case for investment,” he added.

The UB Center for Advanced Technology (CAT), part of STOR, recently awarded $200,000 to a collaborative team of researchers including Anthony Campagnari, M.D., UB associate professor in microbiology, CUBRC (Calspan UB Research Center), and industrial partner HandyLab. A venture-backed spin-off company based on advanced research conducted within the University at Michigan, HandyLab is developing point-of-care diagnostic test instruments using microfluidic technology.

Michael D. Farmer, president and CEO of HandyLab, said that later this summer it will locate four researchers in Buffalo who will work alongside researchers at UB. Together, the team will further develop a point-of-care diagnostic device that detects bioterrorism agents -- such as anthrax and small pox -- in the air.

This new medical device incorporates HandyLab’s patented “lab on a chip” technology with Campagnari’s research on bacterial pathogenesis and the chemical and biological defense expertise within CUBRC.

According to Farmer, there is a “great fit” between the technology HandyLab is developing and commercialization opportunities for UB. By providing HandyLab with access to biochemistry expertise, he said UB is creating a collaborative industry/university project with commercial potential.

“Tony Campagnari is a foremost researcher the field of infectious diseases. We are pleased to be working with him and CUBRC,” Farmer added.

STOR is UB’s primary technology-transfer and commercialization office, supporting product and business development from the laboratory to the marketplace through its Intellectual Property, Research Funding and Commercialization divisions.

The Intellectual Property Division, headed by Keith O. Ellis, Ph.D., specializes in licensing UB-developed technologies to the private sector. The Research Funding Division includes the UB Center for Advanced Technology, directed by William M. Mihalko, M.D., and the UB Technology Transfer Fund. This division provides funds for technology development. The Commercialization Division includes the UB Technology Incubator and consulting for small business development by The InVentures Group, which is headed by Keith Blakely .

(Posted June 26, 2002)

Advisory Board

The University at Buffalo Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR) has named fifteen local community and business leaders to its Regional Advisory Board.

The new members are James Allen, executive director, Amherst Industrial Development Agency; Dianne Bennett, co-chair, Hodgson Russ LLP; Joanne Biltekoff, consultant, Clientlogic; Keith Blakely, president, The InVentures Group; Randall Clark, chairman, Dunn Tire Corporation; Angelo Fatta, Ph.D. president, BuffLink, Inc.; Robert Fox, president, Conax Buffalo Technologies, LLC.; Thaddeus Grasela, PharmD., Ph.D., president and CEO, Cognigen Corporation.

Also, Mark E. Hamister, chairman and CEO, Hamister Group of Companies, Inc.; L. Nelson Hopkins III, M.D., professor and chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, University at Buffalo; Jeremy Jacobs, Jr., executive vice president, Delaware North Companies, Inc.; Thomas Kucharski, president and CEO, Buffalo Niagara Enterprise; Jordan Levy, managing partner, Seed Capital Partners; Michael McQueeney, managing partner, Summer Street Capital Partners LLC; Mary Powell, president, Casilio Companies; Edward Voboril, president and CEO, Wilson Greatbatch Technologies, Inc.

(Posted June 25, 2002)

Oral Historian Launches Consulting Firm

Randforce Associates, a digital oral collection management-consulting firm, has moved into the UB Technology Incubator. After several decades as UB professor of history and senior research scholar, Michael Frisch, Ph.D., developed a unique application for software to store audio and video oral history collections.

Randforce uses Interclipper software, which was originally developed for the market research field. According to Frisch, Randforce president, the software works well for oral-collection management. It permits the key passages in oral and video history to be tagged, coded, and storied in an interactive database. This database can then be searched, indexed, catalogued and even placed onto a CD-ROM.

This new archival system is far richer than the current process of turning audio and video taped interviews, speeches, and clips into text documents for historical purposes. Once transformed into the interactive databases, photos, video clips, and other materials can be linked to it creating a dynamic collection.

A small company with three fulltime employees, Randforce offers a range services including simple consultation, training, and project management. It work with archivists and curators of collections to develop subject specific codes and index categories, and also assist in constructing the taxonomy.

It has been a busy few months for Randforce who moved into the Incubator in April. The company is already at work on two contracted projects, and three other contracts are being negotiated. Randforce has also been asked to help develop three additional major grant applications for projects that, if funded, will rely on the services Randforce provides.

The UB Technology Incubator, part of the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR), helps technology intensive companies grow into thriving businesses. The incubator has assisted more than 60 companies, boasting a 75% survival rate. Currently, it is home to 17 companies, most of which have close ties to UB.

(Posted June 1, 2002)

22 University at Buffalo Inventors Honored by SUNY

Christine Vidal, UB Reporter Contributing Editor

Twenty-two inventors affiliated with the University at Buffalo have been recognized by the State University of New York as being among the outstanding inventors within the SUNY 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 SUNY Chancellor Robert L. King at a ceremony held in Albany on May 20.

"Faculty at the State University of New York conduct some of the most sophisticated and complex research in the world, research 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, UB Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi said, "We are proud that UB 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:

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 (Nicorette® 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 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.

(Posted May 23, 2002)

BuffLink Launches Web Site for Region’s Life Sciences Initiative

www.BuffLink.org

BuffLink has unveiled its official website for the Buffalo Niagara life sciences initiative, www.buffLink.org. The site features information on the Buffalo Niagara Life Sciences Strategic Plan, regional life sciences assets, local business opportunities and resources for entrepreneurs.

This site, which will continue to expand and grow over tine, is a resource for people interested in learning about the regional life sciences initiative. BuffLink is using it to communicate its strategic plan and implementation steps, and to convey information about participating in Buffalo Niagara’s life sciences economy. It is a portal that enables visitors to more fully understand our region’s life sciences assets, accomplishments and contributions.

BuffLink is a private sector organization started in September 2001 to commercialize cutting edge life sciences research through technology transfer in Buffalo Niagara, resulting in the formulation of new businesses and jobs, and ultimately in a larger life sciences industry cluster.

(Posted May 2, 2002)

Ellis is to Head Intellectual Property Division at UB

Keith Osborne Ellis, Ph.D., has been named director of the Intellectual Property Division within the University at Buffalo Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR).

Ellis comes to UB after a 31-year career in pharmacology research and technology licensing. Most recently he worked as an associate director of Technology Acquisition and Global Licensing with The Procter and Gamble Co. in Cincinnati, Ohio.

At UB, he will have direct oversight and management of the Intellectual Property Division within STOR, and will also coordinate the day-to-day operations of Services and Commercialization and Research Venture Funding divisions.

“Dr. Ellis compliments the strengths of STOR,” said Robert J. Genco, D.D.S., Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Professor, UB vice provost and head of STOR. “His background and business expertise in negotiating license agreements for industry and assisting startup businesses will be invaluable to the efforts of STOR in supporting the region’s economic wealth. He brings us a much-needed industrial view of commercialization of technology.”

“STOR’s ability to enhance the activities of start-up biotech and life sciences businesses will have a major impact on the Western New York Region,” added Genco.

Ellis noted that “UB is poised, in a unique way, to have a significant impact on the region. The university’s investment in research and the diversity of the available technologies translates into real business opportunities.”

Ellis was responsible at Procter and Gamble for negotiating inlicensing agreements that brought outside research, often from universities, into P&G to speed product time to market. He also has extensive experience in outlicensing agreements to transfer P&G technologies to other organizations, many of which were entrepreneurial start-up companies.

He previously was manager of new business development for P&G Pharmaceuticals, and held various research and licensing positions at Norwich Eaton Pharmaceuticals, Inc. During his time at Norwich, he also served in faculty positions at State University at New York campuses in Morrisville, Utica, Binghamton and Syracuse. Ellis’ professional memberships include the Society for Experimental Biology, American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and the Licensing Executives Society.

He earned a bachelor degree in Biology from Heidelberg College and a doctorate in pharmacology from the University of Cincinnati.

Ellis is a resident of Clarence.

(Posted May 1, 2002)

CAT Shows Progress

The New York State Center for Advance Technology in Biomedical and Bioengineering (CAT) at the University at Buffalo is wrapping up its first round of project funding. During the first round, it funded three projects for a total of $425,000 and recently appointed William M. Mihalko, M.D. and Ph.D., as director.

Governor George E. Pataki reinstated CAT in Buffalo last spring to focus on biomedical and bioengineering device and product research and development. CAT functions as the science accelerator arm of the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR) by funding projects with commercial potential. Through its funding initiatives, CAT fosters industry university collaboration to create biotech start-up companies and grow existing biomedical businesses.

According to Mihalko, there are two different types of awards granted by CAT, discovery and science transfer. The discovery awards are given to projects that are currently in the research stage in order to get the ideas into development and prototyping. The science transfer awards are granted to researchers with late-stage development that requires additional testing before commercialization.

"This type of award has been the missing link for our researchers," said Robert J. Genco, Ph.D., vice provost and head of STOR. "Agencies often will not fund such projects because they are not true 'discovery research' and often companies want this kind of proof of concept work to have already been completed."

Genco added that the ultimate goal of CAT is to leverage its research into economic gains and new jobs for the region, capitalizing on the region’s research and manufacturing strengths in the areas of biopharmaceuticals and biomedical devices.

Although CAT is a statewide center with funding available to any qualifying New York State company, Mihalko noted that almost all the applications received to date are from the Western New York area.

CAT is planning on awarding 11 different projects for the second round of funding. It is already accepting applications for the third round of funding, which will be awarded later this year.

Mihalko is an associate professor in the Department of Orthopaedics in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, is the research director in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and has a doctorate in biomedical engineering. Additionally, he is head of Orthroplasty Services at the Erie County Medical Center.

(Posted April 29, 2002)

UB to Honor 15 Inventors

Fifteen individuals named on fifteen United States patents issued to The Research Foundation of the State of New York in 2001 will be recognized during a University at Buffalo Patent and Research Recognition Awards Ceremony. The ceremony, hosted by President William R. Greiner and Provost Elizabeth Capaldi, is to be held from 4-6 p.m. at the UB Center for Tomorrow, Amherst, on May 2.

Two of the patented technologies to be recognized at the ceremony are already licensed to companies for use.

Licensed to Jarret, S.A., is a patent issued to Stuart S. Chen, Department of Civil Engineering. Chen, along with collaborators, developed an apparatus for mitigating the seismic load effects of earthquakes and windstorms on a structure, using a dual system of tension cables and dampers that is less intrusive than conventional systems. Co-inventors are John B. Mander and Gokhan Peckan, both formerly of the Department of Civil Engineering.

Licensed to Varian, Inc., is a patent issued to Andrew Joshua Wand and Peter F. Flynn, both formerly of the Department of Chemistry. This technology is a novel method and apparatus for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy of molecules, particularly larger proteins and macromolecules. The method reduces the effective tumbling time of molecules during NMR measurement by providing a low viscosity environment for them. Co-inventor is Mark R. Ehrhardt.

Additionally, another patented technology developed at UB was recognized at the 2001 Inventor of the Year annual patent awards of the Niagara Frontier Intellectual Property Law Association.

Joseph A. Gardella, Jr., Department of Chemistry; Wesley Hicks, Jr., Department of Otolaryngology; Timothy Koloski, Department of Chemistry; and Terrence G. Vargo, Department of Chemistry; developed a method for providing novel surface modified biodegradable polyester polymers that allow small amounts of surface modifiers to be situated on the surface. An intended application of this technology is the development of wound healing membranes. Co-inventors are Won-Ki Lee, formerly of the Department of Chemistry, and Ilario Losito.

Other inventors to be honored are:

Paul J. Kostyniak, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology; Rossman F. Giese, Jr., Department of Geology; and Joseph A. Syracuse, Co-Director of Toxicology Research Center; developed antimicrobial composition, which can impart antimicrobial properties both in, and on, the surface of various household, industrial and medical products. Co-inventor is Patricia M. Costanzo, formerly of the Department of Geology.

D. Jeffery Higginbotham, Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, who was issued three patents on a system, method and database for selecting utterance constructions used for interpersonal communication by impaired individuals. The invention provides improvements in communication speeds, selection efficiency and ease of use, all of which are currently unavailable in augmentative communication technologies. Frame-based communication uses preset utterances relating to a particular communication event, such as a meal. Co-inventor is David Parker Wilkins.

Wesley L. Hicks, Jr., Department of Otolaryngology, who invented the first model of a tracheal lumen that combines epithelial and mesenchymal elements in a manner that mimics the tracheal lumen surface. The research team’s goal is to develop a wound healing membrane for the trachea and other trauma sites.

Donald D. Hickey, Department of Physiology and Biophysics and the Department of Neurosurgery, who invented a novel device and method to provide a non-invasive estimate of cardiac performance parameters by inserting a catheter and balloon into the esophagus, adjacent to the aortic arch, to sense aortic pressure. Part of the previously patented Hickey Cardiac Monitoring System.

Frank V. Bright, Department of Chemistry, who invented a small portable sensing system for quantifying gaseous species or an analyte in a sample using a light emitting diode and detector. The invention builds on a patented sol-gel processing technique that is used to stabilize the protein sensor in a porous xerogel material deposited on the surface of the LED. Co-inventors are Jeffrey D. Jordan, A. Neal Watkins, and Brett R. Wenner, all formerly of the Department of Chemistry.

Stephen Rudin, Department of Radiology and Co-Director of Radiation Physics Laboratory and Toshiba Stroke Research Center, and Daniel R. Bednarek, Department of Radiology, developed a radiographic image apparatus and method for vascular interventions for acquiring very high resolution radiographic digital images over a small region of interest using a digital solid state x-ray image detector for the medical imaging application of angiography. Co-inventors include Ajay Kumar Wakhloo, formerly of the Department of Neurosurgery, and Baruch B. Lieber, formerly of the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering.

Eli Ruckenstein, Department of Chemical Engineering, who invented a method for the purification of wheat germ agglutinin using chitin microporous or macroporous affinity filtration membranes, for application in the areas of biochemistry and medical compound research. Co-inventor is Xianfang Zeng, formerly of the Department of Chemical Engineering.

Donald Henderson, Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, who developed a method for the prevention and/or reversal of inner ear damage due to noise or toxins, through systematically applying agents such as R-PIA to round window membranes of the inner ear. The agents can be applied before, during or after the noise trauma or toxin exposure. This invention is co-assigned to the Navy, which has taken the lead in commercialization efforts. Co-inventors are Michael E. Hoffer and Richard D. Kopke.

Eli Ruckenstein, Department of Chemical Engineering, who invented a method for the preparation of novel crosslinkers and their application to star-shaped or branched polymer and polymer gels used in drug delivery and controlled drug releases. Co-inventor is Hongmin Zhang, formerly of the Department of Chemical Engineering.

Linda M. Hall, Xiao-Feng Ren, and Wei Zheng, all formerly of the Department of Biochemical Pharmaceuticals, invented a method of isolation and characterization of an invertebrate calcium channel subunit gene used in the design of insect specific pesticides. Co-inventor is Manuel Marcel Paul Dubald.

(Posted April 28, 2002)

Programmable Life Grows Out of Incubator

Programmable Life, Inc., is graduating from the University at Buffalo Technology Incubator and moving to a 4,000 square foot facility in Grand Island, New York, that includes laboratory, office and pilot manufacturing space. The company, founded by Robert Downie, Ph.D., develops and manufactures chemical compounds used to produce degradable plastics.

“Helping companies like Programmable Life graduate from the Incubator program and grow their business in Western New York is vitally important,” commented Robert J. Genco, UB vice provost and head of the Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach. “The more of these success stories we have in the area means more jobs are created, bolstering the economic wealth of the region.”

Programmable Life entered the UB Technology Incubator in 1999 to build on research done by ECOssais LLC, a prior venture that Downie started. Research advancements translated into a method of producing low-cost chemical additives that facilitate the degradation of polyethylene, the most widely used plastic. Due to the cost of conventional degradable methods, degradable plastics account for less than one percent of production. Programmable Life is poised to grow the degradable market due largely to its low-cost production methods. Total revenues for Programmable Life last year were $2 million.

The company’s flagship product, EcostarÔ, is a chemical compound that when added to resin can be used to produce degradable or recyclable items such as plastic bags, coated papers, and plastic cups or utensils. EcostarÔ is sold to resin manufactures and is also currently licensed to a Japanese company.

The past six months have been very busy for the company. In December 2001, it became the majority shareholder of Greenchip Investments, PLC. Greenchip has established channels in Europe, and markets North American developed technology to European companies. Downie will continue serving as chief executive officer.

“Our merger with Greenchip opens new marketing channels for Programmable Life in Europe and increases our working capital,” said Downie. According to Downie, the merger fueled his decision to move to a larger facility. “The space in Grand Island has pilot manufacturing facilities, enabling us to begin product production and to add jobs.” The company currently employees five people in Western New York and nine worldwide, and plans to increase employment to 25 within the coming year.

(Posted April 25, 2002)

Stemgenix Joins the UB Technology Incubator

Stemgenix LLC, a biotech start-up company, has found a home at the University at Buffalo Technology Incubator located in Amherst. The company moved into their office in early January, and seeks to become a worldwide leader in specialized media necessary for the isolation, propagation and utilization of stem cells and specialized immune cells for both research and clinical applications.

When Stemgenix co-founder and president, Frank Swartzwelder, Ph.D., decided to establish the company it was only natural that he looked into the Incubator first. Swartzwelder, who has a background cellular immunology and stem cell research and development, previously worked with a former incubator tenant developing a stem cell biology product line. Swartzwelder, along with Chris Alfiero, Stemgenix co-founder and chief executive officer, acquired the assets of this stem cell biology business to form Stemgenix.

“At the incubator, lab spaces are already established, power requirements are already met and the rent is affordable. This is where you want to be if you want to start a company,” said Alfiero. The Incubator provides an environment that helps technology-intensive companies develop and grow. “It’s a great place for people to come in and get started rather quickly, (and it has) access to the University at Buffalo computer network and medical libraries,” offered Ed Hutton, chief financial officer.

“We believe stem cells will have tremendous impact on the management and treatment of disease,” commented Alfiero. Technology breakthroughs in stem cell research are forging new ground in the prevention and treatment of disease. Stemgenix has a portfolio of products used in the analysis of human and murine stem cells. This portfolio also includes Stemgenix’ flagship product, a hematopoietic (blood forming) stem cell expansion medium. The stem cell product line is prominently used in clinical research and therapeutic applications, including immune cell replacement following chemotherapy or radiation therapy for the treatment of cancers such as leukemia, breast and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

“The challenge most researchers and clinicians face is obtaining sufficient numbers of stem cells from the umbilical cord,” commented Swartzwelder. “Cord blood units usually contain only enough cells to transplant a baby or small child. The hematopoietic expansion product is a liquid medium that provides a source of nutrients to optimally grow stem cells isolated from umbilical cords, enabling the clinician to obtain sufficient numbers of cord blood stem cells to treat adult patients. This source is very rich in fetal cells (>90%) and has the greatest potential for therapeutic applications.” Stemgenix is expecting to release the expansion medium, which has outperformed all other expansion media on the market, in February 2002.

The demand and use of stem cells for disease treatment continues to grow. According to International American Bone Marrow Transplant Registries, over 50,000 blood and bone marrow stem cell transplants were performed worldwide in 1998.

With a current market for their products at $30 million, and an expected growth of nearly three times that figure by 2005, Stemgenix is at the threshold of an exciting future. The company has plans to develop several new media over the next few years, and has received outside funding from diverse sources.

“We’ve been approved for funding from the Erie County Industrial Development Agency RDC, (a venture capital fund) and the Western New York Business Development Fund. The actual funding we have right now is from private investors,” says Alfiero. UB is one of the partners in the WNY Business Development Fund.

(Posted March 7, 2002)

UB Leads SUNY in R&D Expenditures

The University at Buffalo ranks among the top colleges in New York State for research and development expenditures, with more than $187 million in expenditures from 1999-2000. According to the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR) the University at Buffalo ranks fourth among New York’s colleges and universities behind Cornell, Columbia and the University of Rochester, with regard to research and development expenditures. UB Provost Elizabeth Capaldi notes, “Research grants are highly competitive, and that UB does so well attests to the excellence of our science and dedication of our faculty in competing at the highest levels.”

(Posted March 6, 2002)

UB Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Enhances Entrepreneurial Talents

The University at Buffalo School of Management Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL), dedicated to the expansion and development of entrepreneurial businesses in Western New York, offers dynamic educational and networking services to operators and owners of both small and large businesses. Since its inception in 1987, thousands of area managers and entrepreneurs have been assisted by CEL.

At the core of CEL is a ten-month program, aimed at developing and nourishing the entrepreneurial talents and abilities of proven business owners whose firms have grown beyond the start-up phase. This program provides the opportunity for entrepreneurs to learn from each other as well as from seasoned area executives and School of Management faculty.

Two years ago, CEL established the Family Business Center Program. Many family-owned businesses survive for decades, but many more fall by the wayside due to internal conflicts, unsound business strategy and a lack of succession planning. The program addresses these unique challenges faced by family owned business.

The CEL Breakfast Series, a new program that is currently underway, brings together local business leaders with industry experts and provides an opportunity to discuss a variety of practical, cutting-edge, business applications. Next on the calendar for the ten part series is “Avoiding Common Employment Law Pitfalls,” which will be held on March 21, 2002. Breakfast Sessions will be held every month through October of this year, covering topics such as human resources to marketing to finance.

CEL also offers an Emerging Entrepreneur and Executive Education programs. More information on CEL and its programs can be found at www.mgt.buffalo.edu/cel or call the center directly at (716) 645-3000.

(Posted March 6, 2002)

UB Takes Lead in New Bioinformatics Center

In early December the University at Buffalo, Governor George Pataki and local business leaders announced the investment of over $200 million for a proposed bioinformatics center to be located near the medical corridor on High Street in Buffalo. The 150,000-square-foot facility will cost $40 million dollars and will become the hub for biotechnology and supercomputing in Western New York.

The university’s role is key to the center’s identity in that UB will provide both equipment and personnel, to translate and develop new technologies for local companies to commercialize. “My hope is that we’ll look back on this in 20 years and say this was a watershed event,” said UB President William R. Greiner, referring to the affects the center could have on the local economy. Final designs for the venture are currently in the works with UB and its partners in the local scientific and business communities.

Click here to learn more.

(Posted December 10, 2001)

UB Technology Research Help Integument Technologies Win Award

Chemical Processing magazine has selected Integument Technologies of Tonawanda to receive its 2001 Vaaler Award in the category of corrosion control for their innovative FluoroGrip® product, developed using technology licensed from the University at Buffalo.

Integument Technologies is a science-based developer and manufacturer of engineered fluoropolymer systems for unique, extreme temperature and chemical environments. FluoroGrip® was developed using unique chemistry and processes developed at UB. This technology provides the ability to chemically bond adhesives, sealants, coatings and lining materials, creating a new cost-effective generation of composite corrosion-protective systems.

The technology that led to creation of Integument’s FluoroGrip® product lines was co-developed by Joseph A. Gardella Jr., Ph.D., UB professor of chemistry, and Terrence G. Vargo, Ph.D., former UB research assistant, and Integument Technologies president and CEO. The former Technology Transfer and Licensing office, now part of the University at Buffalo Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach, licensed this technology to Integument.

Integument Technologies continues its advancement in the chemical industry by partnering with the University at Buffalo to access the wealth of knowledge, laboratories and testing facilities. Today, Integument utilizes facilities at UB’s North Campus for new technology and product development, in addition to using the testing facilities at UB's South Campus Instrumentation Center.

“Integument became involved with UB via several fronts, ” said Vargo. “Our access to both North Campus laboratory facilities and the South Campus Instrumentation Center are key to our continued growth. If not for these facilities it would have been nearly impossible to develop the products Integument currently markets as well as other technologies that are in a more fundamental stage.”

“Integument has been awarded more than $1M over the last three years for several projects that use both UB's base technology and Integument's subsequent advancements of that technology,” commented Vargo. The United States Navy currently funds Integument for work on two projects related to development of novel aircraft paint replacement and lightning strike protection aircraft appliqués.

Integument currently employs six local and highly skilled professionals. Successful completion of its Navy projects could result in a new manufacturing facility with 10-50 high skill-level employment opportunities.

Creation of partnerships between the university and the private sector that result in the creation or retention of jobs and an increase of economic activity within Western New York is the primary mission of UB’s Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach. Its Intellectual Property Division specializes in transferring marketable UB developed technology to the private sector. Currently, there are more than 150 technologies available for licensing in such fields as biomedical, biotech, and chemistry. To learn more about available technologies visit www.stor.buffalo.edu or call the Intellectual Property Division at 716-645-3811.

(Posted December 5, 2001)

Laser Photonics Technology Inc. Brings Innovations To Light at the Incubator

Established in 1991, Laser Photonics Technology, Inc. (LPT) has made major strides in the field of laser/optical technology. The developer of a high capacity, holographic data storage material called MEMPLEX (tm), this local high-tech company has deep roots in the University at Buffalo. Not only is LPT a client in the UB Technology Incubator, its president, Paras N. Prasad is a UB professor of chemistry and the director of the university’s Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics.

Developed for and funded by the U.S. Air Force, MEMPLEXTM meets the high capacity needs of archival storage for medical records, satellite imagery and other large databases. While most holographic materials of this nature run into photo-induced shrinkage (memory distortion problems), MEMPLEXTM has demonstrated very low optical scattering and no measurable shrinkage. It is freestanding, scratch resistant, thermally stable (tolerant to more than 200 degrees Celsius), and is changing the way enormous amounts of information is stored.

How has UB’s state-of-the-art technology incubator helped LPT? “Lab space in Western New York is very hard to find. You can add room, subtract room and not pay a fortune doing it,” said Martin Casstevens, LPT’s business manager, about the UB Technology Incubator. “The management assistance (at the Incubator) has also been helpful. We have recently started a second company called Hybrid Technologies, which is licensed to use MEMPLEXTM in other technical applications, such as telecommunications and optical filters.”

One such application for Hybrid Technologies involves dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM). This requires MEMPLEXTM to function somewhat like a prism, holographically separating different adjacent wavelengths contained in a single telecommunications fiber. Increasing the number of wavelengths in a fiber (and being able to later distinguish them) increases the overall capacity or bandwidth of the fiber.

Optical wavelength filters can also be made from MEMPLEXTM. A U.S. Navy contract targets the use of these filters to better assist laser techniques for actively detecting undersea mammals (whales, dolphins, etc.) near Navy testing sites.

To learn more about the services of the incubator visit www.stor.buffalo.edu or call 716-636-2568.

(Posted December 5, 2001)

Technology Incubator Welcomes Nanogenesys

The UB Technology Incubator welcomes Nanogenesys as a new client. Founded by Dr. Troy Wood (Vice President of Nanogenesys and UB Chemistry Professor), Nanogenesys creates polymers to line medical equipment such as emitters, a less expensive option than metal coatings (generally gold) that are currently used.

Having developed a revolutionary method for delivering minute levels of liquid polymer onto solid surfaces (the Nanospray), Nanogenesys is expected to find numerous applications and customers in the biomedical and pharmaceutical industry.

Dr. Wood led a group of researchers in the development of this innovative process and licensed the technology from the University at Buffalo. This new technology uses “capillary action” to produce a fine mist through the Niagara Flow (a glass tip), which emits polymer droplets into an electrical field. The droplets of polymers undergo a “Coulombic Explosion,” increasing their surface area and spreading them thinly over a solid object. This coating is not only less expensive to produce than its gold counterpart, but it is also more durable.

Nanogenesys has found a home in the UB Technology Incubator to begin their advancement in this groundbreaking field. The Incubator, which specializes in assisting technology start-up companies by offering affordable business services, is currently the home to 16 start-up technology based companies, most of which have close links to the University at Buffalo. Nanogenesys president Marie Moy describes the arrangement: “We’re a spin-off of the University and are licensed through UB. The Incubator facilitates start-ups to become profitable and marketable. It’s perfectly suited, convenient to UB, with low overhead. We didn’t even have to install laboratory hoods.”

For more information on the Technology Incubator’s flexible rental terms, office and lab space, support services and links to UB visit our website at www.uballiance.buffalo.edu or call (716) 636-2568.

(Posted October 12, 2001)

Tramposch Named UB Associate Vice President for Research

Kenneth M. Tramposch, a researcher with 20 years experience in the discovery, development and project management of new drugs, has been appointed associate vice president for research at the University at Buffalo.

Tramposch – a UB graduate with a doctorate in medicinal chemistry – most recently was president and chief operating officer of Pilot Therapeutics Inc., a venture-backed biopharmaceutical company based in Winston Salem, NC. "Dr. Tramposch brings to UB a wealth of experience in commercialization of biomedical an biopharmaceutical research," said Dr. Jay Turkkan, UB vice president for research and chair of the UB Business Alliance.

In his new position, he will be responsible for scientific programs, organized research units and matters relating to technology transfer, among other duties.

(Posted October 12, 2001)

TTL Reports Three New Licenses

After seven years of 'nurturing' within the protective and supportive environment of the University at Buffalo, the software development and support group led by Dr. John Eisner and formerly known as The Academic Software Collaboration (TASC) has left the School of Dental Medicine to form a private company called Academic Management Systems. Under the license agreement negotiated by the Technology Transfer and Licensing office, the University at Buffalo becomes a shareholder in the new company, with the majority owner being Liaison International, Inc. Dr. Eisner is a co-founder of the new company.

With this new partnership Academic Management Systems has combined the academic and support interests of TASC with the business management expertise of Liaison International. The mission of the new company is to provide excellent academic management software and information technology consultation services for health professions schools. The new company will remain at UB during its initial eighteen-month incubation period under a facilities use agreement.

SONUS Pharmaceuticals, Inc., has licensed UB patents that cover a method for using microbubbles to enhance the transport of gases between tissues. SONUS will use the patents to develop S-9156, a proprietary synthetic blood substitute product. Animal studies conducted by UB researchers, Claes Lundgern, Ph.D., and Ingvald Tyssebotn, Ph.D., have shown significant oxygen transport capacity in simulated blood loss studies using SONUS' formulation. SONUS, located near Seattle, Washington, is engaged in the research and development of therapeutic drug delivery products based on its proprietary emulsion formulation technology.

Dr. David Eddins and Dr. Richard Salvi developed new software designed to be a comprehensive tool for designing and running human and animal auditory psychophysics experiments. Tucker Davis Technologies (TDT), based in a Gainesville, Florida, licensed the software and plans to use it to enhance their current hardware systems, an opportunity they believe will attract more customers to their products. TDT is a leading developer of integrated signal processing workstations for life sciences research, including psychoacoustics, neurophysiology, speech, spatial hearing, and virtual acoustics.

To review technologies available for licensing, visit our web site at www.uballiance.buffalo.edu.

(Posted September 17, 2001)

Biotech Firm Helps Infants Breathe Easy

Newborn babies in the United States have a new drug that prevents and treats respiratory failure. Now widely used in neonatal intensive care units, this innovative technology was developed by UB researchers in collaboration with other scientists working in New York and Ontario universities and commercialized by ONY, Inc. at the UB Technology Incubator. To achieve ONY's current success, it took more than a decade of basic and clinical research, creation of a manufacturing facility capable of commercial scale production and, finally, regulatory review and approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

ONY has been the anchor client of the UB Technology Incubator since 1989, occupying the largest incubator suites. The company currently employs a staff of 26 full and part-time workers. ONY acquires calf lungs from upstate New York meat packers (an otherwise unusable waste product) and recovers, extracts and purifies a natural material called "lung surfactant." Lung surfactant lines the inside of the lungs of all air-breathing animals. The modified extract is manufactured into a drug, Infasurf® (calfactant), that is administered to newborn babies to prevent and treat respiratory failure. The material is instilled directly into the lungs, coats the inside and prevents the lungs from collapsing. This is a lifesaving drug with minimal side effects. ONY manufactures Infasurf®, which is, in turn, marketed to hospitals with newborn intensive care units throughout the United States by Forest Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Edmund A. Egan MD, President of ONY and a Professor of Pediatrics and Physiology at the University at Buffalo, states, "Infasurf's® scientific heritage indicates it has advantages over lung surfactant products that preceded it. Infasurf® now has 30% of the surfactant market in the United States and we expect that share to continue to grow."

ONY is not just a manufacturing company. ONY continues to interact with scientists at UB, at other universities and at research biopharmaceutical companies. One area of investigation features new formulations of the material that would be easier to administer. Another active area of investigation is the expansion of Infasurf's® application beyond newborns. A 40-center national trial chaired by Dr. Douglas Willson of the University of Virginia is underway to determine how effective Infasurf® could be in older children with respiratory failure.

ONY provides Infasurf® to dozens of scientists throughout the country who are investigating the overall importance of the lung lining in many forms of human lung disease. Dr. Egan is optimistic about the long-term success of these continuing research activities: "Although I doubt there will be any short-term breakthroughs into non-pediatric patients, lung surfactant is involved in many lung diseases and I believe it will be a significant resource for future therapies."

(Posted September 14, 2001)

Incubator Transition: UB and TDC Change Relationship at Technology Incubator

In May, the University at Buffalo and the Western New York Technology Development Center announced a change in the agreements under which TDC and UB have been co-managing the UB Technology Incubator. Effective July 1, 2001, the UB Business Alliance will assume full responsibility for management of the incubator. TDC had provided day-to-day management, including facilities management and business counseling to tenant companies, since the facility opened in 1988.

The UB Technology Incubator, located in the Baird Research Park, 1576 Sweet Home Road in Amherst, provides office space, laboratory facilities, office support services, business consulting and access to UB resources to start-up technology companies. The incubator has been the home of sixty-seven technology start-up companies over the past thirteen years, with client companies and graduates employing more than four hundred fifty people and generating total revenues of over $61 million.

TDC will continue as an anchor tenant in the UB Technology Incubator and will provide initial business advisory services to each new client of the current incubator, complementing the services offered by the UB Business Alliance.

UB Vice President for Research, Dr. Jaylan S. Turkkan, Chair of the UB Business Alliance, described the change in incubator management as part of a "natural evolution in the University's partnership with TDC. The UB Technology Incubator is a Western New York success story and TDC deserves a major share of the credit. The change recognizes TDC's growing strength as a provider of business consulting services and UB's extensive capabilities in entrepreneurial development. Working together, the new relationship will enable TDC and the UB Business Alliance to further improve the full range of services available to new business enterprises in our region."

Robert J. Martin, president of TDC, stated, "The TDC values its long-standing partnership with UB that has led to the formation of many hi-tech companies and employment in our community. Our changing relationship recognizes the University's increasing commitment to business incubation and the TDC's continuing support of this commitment. The expanded efforts in business incubation will accelerate UB's contributions to our community's technology business development."

The July 1st management transition is intended to better integrate the incubator program with business and technical resources available within the University at Buffalo. UB President William Greiner noted that, "By increasing our focus on the incubation program, we will be able to develop programs and services that our clients need to accelerate the growth of their companies. This can help us fulfill all three of our missions: teaching, research, and service."

(Posted August 10, 2001)

Incubator Welcomes AMBP, TECH

The UB Technology Incubator is the home of some of the most unique businesses in Western New York. Its close proximity to the University at Buffalo is no coincidence either. Joining the group of growing and successful start-ups that fill up the UB Technology Incubator is AMBP Tech, creators of Laser Assisted Molecular Beam Deposition (LAMBD).

This new technique, developed at UB over the past 10 years by Professor Jim Garvey, is used to generate thin-film coatings for use in commercial electronic equipment. By heating the coating to temperatures higher than those on the surface of the sun, then cooling them below room temperature, Professor Garvey's team has sidestepped a major problem associated with building computer chips, chemical incompatibility. The extreme temperatures create the proper chemistry before coating, so as not to burn the microchip. This process greatly reduces chip failure, which can occur during other processes.

Where else in Western New York can you heat a thin film hotter than the surface of the sun, at a reasonable price? Nowhere. Professor Garvey explains AMBP Tech's reasons for joining the UB Incubator, "They had the best rent, lab space, and equipment capabilities in the area," not to mention excellent business support services.

In other Incubator news, RFQlogix, a leader in e-Procurement for manufacturers of metal fabrication and other related industries, announced that it has secured venture funding from Washington Technology Partners (WTP). WTP specializes in early-stage financing of technology companies. In addition to their financing role, WTP will provide market development assistance, operational support, and legal assistance to the company.

For more information about the UB Technology Incubator's support services, building amenities, client qualifications, or current clients visit www.uballiance.buffalo.edu.

(Posted August 10, 2001)

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