University of Massachusetts President Jack M. Wilson today announced 4 grants to accelerate the commercialization of technologies developed in UMass laboratories. "The University of Massachusetts has established itself as a research and technology leader," President Wilson said. "These grants are intended to keep the innovation pipeline flowing, which will benefit the Commonwealth's economy and provide social benefits that will extend far beyond our borders."

The grants are funded out of the CVIP Technology Development Fund which is managed by the Office of Commercial Ventures and Intellectual Property.  The fund was created as part of President Jack Wilson's science and technology action agenda.  Funding is from University licensing revenues. This is the 3^rd award cycle.

The awards provide UMass researchers with supplemental funding to advance previously disclosed University technologies toward commercialization. The fund is intended to move technologies to the proof of concept stage or to allow the investigator to take other critical steps to make the technology attractive for licensing or other forms of commercialization.  Typically this type of funding is not available from any other sources.  Initial results from prior awards were very positive as illustrated by the following outcomes:

·        As a result of the funding, a clean prototype of a high throughput machine for the detection of cancerous cells and other diseases was built. This demonstration resulted in an exclusive license to a MA diagnostic company in December 06.

• CVIP's funding has created a number of commercial leads for technologies including carbohydrate-based vaccines and RNAi technologies.

• Funds increased the rate of development of University developed educational software and an initial royalty check was received. A French version was completed and shipped to Canada for testing.

For 2006, four grants of $20,000 each will be awarded to UMass researchers. These technologies represent a broad range of disciplines. Each of these technologies are highly innovative and have  potential  significant commercial markets.   These CVIP Technology Development Fund awards are going to the following project team leaders:

John J. Wixted, M.D. and Jeremy J. McCormick, M.D., Orthopedic Surgery Department, UMass Medical School

Dr. Jeremy McCormick and Dr Jack Wixted have developed a new device for the treatment of complex hind foot deformities.  This device, a metal rod that is inserted through the heel bone and into the shinbone, allows the bones involved to compress.  This improved compression is designed to improve healing in patients with difficult to treat problems of the heel and ankle

Samson S. Milshtein, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, UMass Lowell

A novel medical diagnostics had been developed, namely, a low cost Infra-Red (IR) imaging system that allows one to scan human arms, legs, palms, fingers, etc. in order to visualize different tissues, tendons, muscles, ligaments, blood vessels, bones and cartilages. Some of these objects cannot be detected by conventional x-rays. The UMass CVIP funding will help to design a manufacturable prototype and, hopefully, will lead to licensing of the novel technology.

Lloyd H. Semprevivo, Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, UMass Amherst

Dr. Semprevivo will use the funds to raise monoclonal antibodies instrumental in demonstrating the feasibility of an anti-idiotype (peptide mimic) vaccine for fascioliasis. The objective in developing a peptide mimic vaccine is to enhance the UMass patent position and to develop a potentially more cost effective product.

Shan Lu, MD, PhD., Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology Department, UMass Medical School

Dr. Lu's technology is a novel concept of flu vaccine. He has optimized the codon utilization of flu DNA vaccines and significantly improved the immune responses induced by such flu DNA vaccines. He plans to use this CVIP award to finish the late phase pre-clinical studies to develop a prototypic flu vaccine formulation which can cover both seasonal and pandemic flu infections.

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Commercial Ventures and Intellectual Property (CVIP) is responsible for the commercialization of discoveries made on the 5 campuses of UMass. It's Executive Director, Dr. William Rosenberg is in the Office of the President and there are CVIP office on each campus. Licensing of UMass intellectual property  generated approximately $28.5 million in FY 05 for the University.   Within CVIP is the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center (MTTC, www.mattcenter.org),  which has responsibility for facilitating the transfer of technology between all public and private research institutions in the Commonwealth and MA companies.  Dr. Abigail Barrow is the MTTC director.

Many members of our faculty have impressive records in patenting their inventions. 

In order to recognize these achievements and to increase awareness of this work,

Commercial Ventures and Intellectual Property and the Vice Provost for Research

will recognize those who received patents in 2005 at this year's Annual Research

Recognition Dinner.  Plaques will be presented to the inventors and to the Dean of the

school to which they belong.

In addition, the award program will honor faculty who have reached their 5th issued patent

with a Milestone Award, their 10th issued patent with a Landmark Award, and their

20th issued patent with a Lifetime Award. 

For Patents issued in 2005:

Vincent M. Rotello, Professor of Chemistry, issued US Patent 6,890,486 "MIP/QCM sensors

for high sensitivity-fast sensing of small molecules in solution," with co-inventors formerly of UMass Polymer Science & Engineering Jacques Penelle and Kanad Das.

Csaba Andras Moritz, Associate Professor, C. Mani Krishna, Professor, and Israel Koren, Professor, of Electrical and Computer Engineering, for US Patent 6,934,865 "Controlling a

processor resource based on a compile-time prediction of number of instructions-per-cycle

that will be executed across plural cycles by the processor."

The Dean of the School of Engineering, Michael F. Malone, will receive a plaque recognizing

US Patent 6,863,983 "Crystalline Membranes," by Michael Tsapatsis,  Zhiping Lai, and

Griselda Bonilla, formerly of the Chemical Engineering Department.

This year, the Landmark Award winners are Richard J. Farris, Professor Emeritus

and Robert W. Lenz, Professor Emeritus of Polymer Science and Engineering. 

Louis A. Carpino, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, will be recognized with both a

Landmark Award and a Lifetime Award for his patents in amino acid and peptide chemistry.

Congratulations to all UMass Inventors!

Dec. 6, 2005

Contact:

Michael Jaremchuk 413/577-6121

AMHERST, Mass.  BioVeris Corporation of Gaithersburg, Md, announced today that it has exercised its option to enter into an exclusive, worldwide license agreement with the University of Massachusetts Amherst for patent rights to a proprietary vaccine candidate for Chlamydia, the most frequently reported infectious disease in the United States. Under the agreement, the company has licensed exclusive rights to commercialize products for possible use in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of all chlamydial infections, including the disease, Chlamydia, caused by the bacterium, Chlamydia trachomatis.

University research nurtures innovation and stimulates economic growth

Click on the link below to read the article which appeared in the Wall Street Journal Nov. 30, 2005

Thomas Russell, Distinguished Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering, was recently elected to the board of directors of the Materials Research Society, an international organization with more than 13,000 members. His three-year term begins Jan. 1.